I'll Fly Away
by Lina Trinch
Summary: Balthazar, the once dead angel, ended up falling along with the rest of Heaven's garrison. How? Why? Along with a hunter named Catherine, he has every intention of finding Dean and Sam to figure out what's going on, assuming the enemy doesn't get to him first. Like Abbadon or... worse. Balthazar/OC. Set from the end of Season 8.
1. Chapter 1

**Wow, okay! It's been a long time since I've written a fanfic for anything, but, thankfully, I have yet to ever stop writing at all so here's hoping this goes well. For some reason or another, I'm new to the Supernatural fandom. I know, it's a shame. Anyway, there's a lack of Balthy/OC fics out there, especially long ones, so I thought I'd help out with that.**

**As stated, this takes place after the season 8 finale, so it's sort of during season 9. Others are going to come back, too, so be on the lookout for your favorite dead people, especially of the angel type.**

**I have no idea how long this fic will be, I have no idea if I'll even finish it, but I wanted a nice little side project and this is it. If you've skipped all of this and jumped straight to the story, no one blamed you. Here we go!**

* * *

A red and black striped 1961 Dodge Challenger sped down the paved back road at nearly one in the morning until Catherine was at least fairly sure she was far enough away from any police man's watchful eye. There must have been previous reports of vandalism in that graveyard prior to her finding the body of her ghostly friend. It didn't look good on her to be caught burning bodies, but, thankfully, she wasn't caught. Just very nearly.

So ridiculously stupid, but at least she got the bitch.

She pulled off to the side of the road, keeping a watchful eye to make sure no one decided in that moment to come around the next bend. She was in the thick of trees and, at this hour, it would look just a little suspicious to find her here now. Years of hunting and _now_ she decides to be paranoid over the cops.

With a sigh, Catherine reached for the sawed off shotgun in the passenger seat, cocking the barrel and checking on her ammo. Only one salt shell left in the gun. She had been lucky. Cat reloaded the gun and turned the safety on, before putting it back and reaching for her pistol stuffed in the back of her jeans, when a shimmer caught her eyes shining off the hood of her car.

She jumped and looked to the source, seeing nothing there. If she hadn't been so jumpy over the police, she may have missed the small light. Catherine took a calming breath and leaned forward in her seat, palming her pistol, but nothing happened for several tense seconds until another small light darted across the hood. It was a reflection from- She looked to the sky. They must have been falling stars.

A deep breath that she hadn't realized she had been holding escaped her and she leaned back in her seat just in time to catch another dart across the sky. Drawing her attention back to the gun in her hands, Catherine took out the magazine to count what was left of her bullets when she suddenly realized that she could see a great deal better than a few seconds ago. Upon looking up again, Catherine saw a lot more meteors than she had assumed would be in a meteor shower, some traveling slowly across the sky, others being... almost _big _enough to make out. They must be big. They couldn't be that close... but it was so many.

She stopped counting after she reached thirteen before loading her gun again and stepping out of the car. The wind had picked up and the sound of a loud, far off, roaring echo traveled through the area. Catherine was no expert about anything like this, but she was fairly sure meteor showers didn't feel and sound like this. This felt like... like something was actually a little too close for comfort and wasn't entirely burning away in the atmosphere.

The roaring grew louder and shadows from the trees across the road stretched over her and the car. She quickly turned to look at the light, gripping her gun tight but still finding fear in something she didn't understand, when the shadows and lights from the trees darted across the highway as the meteor quickly drew closer. In an instinctual reaction, Catherine flung herself to the ground beside her car just as the fire roared pass directly over the tree tops and landed with a massive explosion not far from her position.

She sat up and, with her back pressed against the rear tire of the Challenger, Catherine took heavy breaths and watched as the meteors fell from the sky in every direction. End of the world? She wasn't sure, but it was terrifying all the same. None of the others seemed to be touching down anywhere near her, but the amount of meteors falling didn't slow up or lessen at all. Her primary option was to sit quietly, albeit terrified, and watch stars rain down from the Heavens...

She glanced over the trunk of her car to the crash site, seeing a red glow through the trees that can only indicate fire. Again, not an expert, but a meteor around about the size that she had seen—and she had a front row seat to the thing—would have done a lot more damage than a small fire. Perhaps this was something more in her department... but what? If it had legs and any sort of sense, it wouldn't stick around for very long. She took another breath and got up, slinked quietly around the car, and ran into the wood as fast as she could manage without drawing too much attention. A pistol and hunting knife wasn't exactly great protection, all things considered, so she didn't want to even act like she could jump in, guns blazing.

The fire hadn't spread as much as she thought it would have, considering the huge ball of fire that had passed over head mere moments ago, but it took her less than five minutes to find the point of impact... and a groan to reach her ears.

Breathing in cold air mixed with charred ash hurt the lungs of the man groaning on the ground far more than the woman approaching him. He rolled off of his back to lean against his shoulder and it was around this point that he noticed the gun pointed at his face held by, what looked like, a very scared brunette in her later twenties. He was too hurt and confused to question it so Balthazar rolled his eyes and looked to the ground.

"What are you?" Catherine breathed out, grabbing her knife with her free hand to prove she was at least armed a bit. It was stupid to go against something she didn't know, of course, but she didn't have a whole lot of choice in the matter.

The man groaned again, this time from annoyance, as he slowly attempted to get to his knees. Ignoring the girl and her question, he instead started patting down his chest and stomach, looking down at the gray, v-neck shirt. The action drew her attention to his chest, as well, noting the small hole and blood on his clothes. Looking back up to his face, she suddenly wasn't sure which one of them was more confused in the matter.

Balthazar looked past the trees, his eyes giving a very far away look. "I'm alive," he muttered beneath his breath. It was a bit too much to take in, though it didn't come without a reward. His wings-

"I caught that," she answered back, bringing his attention back to the woman who was still here for some reason. "I meant more specifically."

He glanced back over to her, still caught without his breath and trying to figure out what in the Hell had happened for him to end up... here. "Angel," he answered her, not really bothering with any sort of mysterious answer. There was too much mystery going on right now for his taste. "I'm an angel."

Balthazar began to get to his feet, but the woman brought her firearm up again and took a step back. She had never been one to claim there was no such thing in something, especially since that was a sound enough explanation for whatever was still going on around them, but it was still pretty hard to believe. "Where's your wings?"

He laughed hollowly at what appeared to be a very, very bad joke. His wings were there, of course, but in ribbons, completely unusable. Is this what Cas did? Instead of kill him, subject him to a life like this, away from Heaven? Away from communications with his brothers? Not that he ever cared to use that, but still. It would be handy right now. "You can't see them. Halo, either. Now, if you don't mind-"

She cut him off from stepping around her. "You're not leaving," Catherine told him with actual determination. She needed to know what to do with him. Were angels any good? She grew up in a religious family and angels didn't always seem like the good guys. She couldn't let him leave, but how did she kill an angel? If he even was an actual angel, that is.

"I'm afraid I am, love. Move." If his wings were torn apart, he wasn't sure how much power he had left or if he wanted to waste any of it. After all, he could have sworn he was dead a moment ago...

The obviously scared woman... well, hunter really, didn't move to get out of his way. He tried again. "Please, move."

"I don't know what the Hell is going on," she began, "but you are not leaving, Angel Man. Falling out of the sky in a ball of fire tends to make someone a little suspicious of your actions."

He rolled his eyes. "I don't have time for this. Sorry, sweetheart." Balthazar motioned his arm towards the girl and sent her flying back to her car. Her head and back connected harshly against hood and she fell to the ground in heap, unconscious or worse.

The angel stalked out of the thicket, watching the sky and spying a few others falling just as he did. It was odd... and troubling. He needed to find out what was going on, but he couldn't do so here. However, if there were angels now across the globe, hunters would be all over it. He looked back to the woman and knelt down beside her to place his palm on her forehead, healing what wounds he had inflicted. She would have to be his informant, at least for the basics of whatever was going on. Perhaps this was the result of Castiel or Raphael busting into Purgatory unannounced.

He stood again, debating on whether or not to steal her car to find the nearest town, as that would certainly give them a reason to find each other again, but ultimately decided against it and went back into the foliage that he had landed in.

* * *

Catherine lurched forward as soon as she awoke, sitting up quickly and looking around. The first rays of dawn were beginning to spread through the trees where, just last night, an angel passed through on his fall from Heaven... assuming that is what happened. She couldn't take his word.

Looking around further, she found no smoke from where he had landed and, most importantly, that she was unharmed. The... whatever he was didn't kill her when he had a clear shot. That was troubling. He could have left her alone for any number of reasons, few of them charitable.

She stayed in the area for another fifteen minutes, making sure there was no sign of her visitor before gathering her gun and knife again and getting back in the car. She had to leave before traffic started to pass through and the man wasn't anywhere in sight, so she pulled back onto the road to head for home and call some sort of informant that might know what on Earth had happened.

While driving, she continued glancing up to the sky, noting how ordinary it looked again.

* * *

**It's quite short and there's a distinct lack of dialogue, but don't worry. This is just the intro. These two will have a lot more interaction. And, as you've likely noticed, Balthazar is very in the dark about basically everything.**

**Feel free to give crit! As I said, I haven't written a fanfic in a long time and this is my first one with an OC. Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, second chapter time! Hopefully, we can get some characterizations and what-not on the roll here.**

* * *

Catherine pinched the bridge of her nose as she stalked in front of the muted TV with her cell to her ear. So far, the words of her visitor last night seemed pretty true so far.

"Angels?" she asked again to the man on the other end of the phone. "They're real and-? What? Hurt? I don't-"

"_Well, probably_," the voice answered from the other end of the phone. "_Informant says they actually _fell_ from Heaven or something like that and they're pissed._"

"I would be, too," she muttered, finally sitting down on the couch to watch the news. The world wide meteor shower from the night before was just astounding to the whole world. Wonderful.

The voice continued. "_Apparently, they're like demons. They need to possess someone to walk around and they're damn powerful and damn dangerous. They aren't the stereotype. They'll kill people._"

Cat groaned and hung her head. Matt was an older man—a hunter, of course—and she had never questioned his sources or ever found a reason to, but all of this? It was a bit too much to take in all at once. Most monsters gave a person a few centuries to get used to. Luckily, she hadn't told old Matt about her encounter so far. "How do we kill them?"

She heard a sigh on the other end and the creak of his chair. Cat closed her eyes. "_There's some sort of holy oil,_" he began, "_from Jerusalem. It's not exactly on the market, but making a ring around them and burning it traps them, might even hurt them. All of 'em carry around their own weapons, too. Some sort of blade or dagger or something. It kills other angels and... basically anything else from what I'm told. Other than that_," he sighed again and she could hear him flipping pages of a book, "_there's apparently some sigils or wards or something that can keep them out, but... I don't know any of it. I don't even know where to look. I mean... this is kind of new._"

"Matt," she pinched the bridge of her nose and started to rub her eyes, remembering that she had yet to get any sleep from the night before aside for being knocked out. "Where are you even getting what you already know from? I mean, have you seen any of it work or-"

"_No_," he went ahead and answered her. "_But I have my stuff on good authority._"

"And that is...?"

"_Old friends... and the King James._"

"The Bible..." Catherine pulled her fingers through her hair. This was all so ridiculous.

"_Every hotel's got one. I'd get to reading._"

"I'm not in a hotel," she leaned back on the couch. "I'm home now. Was hoping to keep it that way. I don't mind going across state for a bad demon, I get that, but I'm not about to go around hunting angels if they're that bad. We don't even know what happened in Heaven or what their motives are for hurting people."

"_Catherine_," he answered back sternly. "_We can't give them two inches. They're worse than demons. You know what the devil is, right? He was the first of those things to fall. He's been out of contact with Heaven for just about ever. Now all of his brothers and sisters are down here, too. You see what I mean?_"

"I'm not trying to argue their case, I'm just saying that they are way too much for us right now. They're... _too much_."

"_Are you scared?_"

She dropped her arms down in defeat, taking the phone away from her ear in the process. Catherine never really was the type to travel the country and hunt things down when she came across them. She was more of the type to let them come to her. But scared? Fear got people killed, even if these things were damn scary.

Matt's voice drifted to her from the phone and she put it back to her ear again and continued. "I'm just saying that we don't know how powerful they could be. Trying to fight one alone on the information we have is suicide. You don't know what these things do."

"_And I'm guessing that you do?_"

She stayed silent for a moment, finding it hard to decide if she should say something or not. It was already too late.

"_Is there something you want to tell me?_" His question would have sounded sincere if he hadn't screamed it.

"I, uh-" Catherine rubbed at her eyes again. "I might have had a close encounter with the holy kind last night."

The other end stayed in silence as Matt went through the usual questions in his head. She was alive. If she were hurt, she would have said something. Cat knew him well enough to wait a moment until he finally said, "_Tell me everything._"

So, she told him about her late night bonfire, running home from the cops, the meteor shower, almost getting killed by said meteor shower, and the strange... angel. She made sure to include how easy it was for him to toss her aside like he had done, but also mentioned that she came away unscathed.

"_Strange he didn't kill ya,_" he seemingly muttered to himself. "_You said he landed in the trees... with a body and everything._"

"He even had an accent. Something... Europe-y. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a guy out there, I mean... they were all falling. It didn't look like they had flight paths."

"_He already had a vessel. He was here before, like the ones in the lore._"

Catherine remembered how the angel looked a bit battered when she had first come across him, how he was stunned at just being alive. Of course, that could have been because he just fell from the freaking sky.

Matt's voice pulled her back to the conversation. "_My source said they used to be able to fly. Like teleporting to you and me. Jumping around from place to place, but since they fell, they got their wings ripped off or something._"

There was a pause, so she just shrugged. "Okay?"

"_He's not far._"

Realization of his words hit her and she leaned forward on her arms. "You want me track him down?" she asked him incredulously. Didn't she just get off of the soap box about that?

"_This is a good lead. Just keep an eye out for him. You don't have to step in alone. I'll send someone your way, but they might take some time to get there. Just find him. Watch him. That's all I ask._"

"You didn't get slung into your car," she groaned, rubbing her forehead in thought. To be honest, it was a good plan. Jumping in would be stupid, but keeping an eye on him, making sure he wasn't torturing people or whatever? That could come in handy. "Fine. I'll start looking."

"_Good girl. Keep in touch._"

"Yeah, yeah." She hung up the phone, watching the news play back in thought while biting her thumb. His trail was already cold when she had come to earlier in the day... Catherine sighed, turning the TV off and getting up.

* * *

So it definitely wasn't just him. From the way the hunters had talked over the phone, it sounded like all of the angels had fallen...

Balthazar kept a close eye on the woman, but due to his recent handicap, he could only do so much. He watched her leave her home in the middle of no where, probably to go back to the same place they had parted ways, and waited until she was gone to start moving.

He had some information, but not enough, not yet. This woman, Catherine, seemed just as curious as he was about what had happened the previous night, so it was wise to stay around her. Let her gather up information for him. There was nothing he could do about it for the moment, especially with his old pals seemingly hidden from him.

With nothing else to do for the time being, he resolved to make his way through the thicket of pine trees and into town. Try to find other information or maybe a monster or two who would actually know something.

* * *

Catherine had caught no sign of her angel friend at their previous rendezvous, as expected. After looking around there for a bit, she headed into town. Thomaston was the nearest town in miles, so it was her best chance.

She didn't know a whole lot about actual living and breathing angels, so she checked the usual places. Gas stations. Restaurants. Hotels. Angels wouldn't fall with a pocket full of money, but it sounded like they could easily get whatever they pleased; however, these places turned up no luck, back to back.

Working her way out of town, she went through the older parts of the area, the abandoned parts, so to speak. Still no sign of anything. The entire time, she was wired for something to go wrong quickly. If she did happen to find him, she doubted he would be thrilled about it.

Eventually, she had made her way to the river and the evening was only just starting to set in. She walked along its banks for a few moments, already knowing there was nothing here. The angel had a whole day's worth of a start on her. He was already long gone.

With a heavy sigh, Catherine turned around to start heading back to the car only that someone was now standing in the path. Unfortunately, it wasn't the man she had been looking for, but a younger man with dark hair and a smile. "Hey," he called over to her.

She looked at him, startled that he had suddenly popped up like that. "Hi," was her answer in return. Her shackles were already on high. Was this an angel? Something else?

The man began walking forward. "Nice evening."

"Yeah," she replied and started to move in a wide arc around him. "I was just heading back-"

He faced her, eyes turning black. "No, you aren't."

The pistol was in her hand quickly, but another, one she hadn't seen, grabbed her arm from behind, twisting it quickly to force her to drop the gun before pushing her down to the ground with unheard of strength. Demons. Great.

Catherine pulled out her hunting knife only for her wrist to be stamped down by a black stiletto. Cherry red pedicured nails was a strange look for a demon, Catherine idly thought as she looked up to the smiling red head above her. The other demon was out of her line of sight and seemed to be up to something else, likely something not good.

"Good evening," the female demon purred with a smile, kneeling down to wrap her perfect hands around the hunter's throat. "The Queen of Hell is here to inquire:... Where's your angel?"

* * *

**Yup, Abbadon's here. Umf, I love her. Anyway, are these chapters too short for you guys? I tried to make it longer, but it actually came out a little bit shorter...**

**Anyway, OH NOES WHAT WILL HAPPEN NOAW!?1? And all that. More Balthy in the next chapter. :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello again, folks. I'm happy to see some of you are enjoying this fic and we haven't even really gotten on a roll yet! I apologize that I take a while to warm up to things. I just love writing long stuff. It's both a gift and a curse. Mostly a curse.**

* * *

It was little wonder why this demon called herself the Queen of Hell. Catherine wasn't sure about the hierarchy, but not all demons were even close to as strong as this on. She was reminded again of this one's strength when her back connected with something cold and solid—concrete wall?—after being thrown around like a rag doll. The angel might have been this powerful, but he wasn't nearly as crazy.

Catherine coughed in a sorry attempt to breathe, but the sound of Abbadon's heels clicking as she moved closer gave the hunter pause about getting up off her back. However, she did open her eyes to see that she was in one of the abandoned buildings she had looked at just a half hour ago to find that angel. Too bad he hadn't been here.

The woman's voice carried rebounded around the room. "Start marking up those windows," she told the other demon, "We want to get the drop on the angel, not the other way around."

There was no reply aside from the man running over to the far wall, cutting the palm of his hand with a knife in the process.

Catherine's attention was directed back to the so-called Queen as the woman began to address her instead. "So... you don't know, huh?"

"Not that I don't like demons," Cat coughed, then responded more clearly, "but I told you everything. Saw him for a few seconds last night then lost him. I don't know where he went."

"Really. You sure?"

Catherine tried to shift, but found that she couldn't, her movements being hindered by the demon's strength. This wasn't good.

"Because," Abbadon continued, "you've destroyed several of my brethren, even the stronger ones. I know a great deal about you, Catherine. You have a lead. Tell me where he is."

Except that was the problem. She didn't have a lead, not a good one, at least. The angel had moved on, probably headed west or something, but anyone could come up with that much. Even so, she refused to speak.

Abbadon knelt down beside the hunter with a little grin and sighed. "He's not the only angel that fell last night," she calmly spoke. "He's not worth your life. He's not worth my time. There's a lot more out there and I won't lose any sleep over killing my only informant for one little angel. On the other hand, I greatly enjoy torture. So... you can pick."

Torture didn't sound fun. "I told you," Catherine answered back. This wouldn't be her first rodeo, but the worst part was that she was telling the truth. It was entirely possible that Abbadon knew that or maybe she was just fishing for details. Selling an angel out to a demon just didn't seem to be right, though... not that it really mattered right now.

"Yeah." Abbadon smirked down at the hunter and rotated her wrist, forcing Catherine to feel as if her organs were doing the same. She tried desperately not to scream from the pain, because if it actually did attract any help, they would just end up dead. It was always a rule for her, but there wasn't anyone to hear her out here and... that rule didn't always work.

Catherine screwed her eyes shut and arched her shoulders, grunting in an attempt to not scream out. The taste of copper came to her and she wasn't sure if it was because she was biting herself or because blood was coming up through her throat. It felt like the latter, but she couldn't spare a thought on it.

Suddenly, the tension released and Cat caught a few very painful breaths.

"Well?" the demon asked sweetly.

Cat didn't bother opening her eyes that time. She just coughed and turned her head to the side for a moment. After a second, she spoke again, hoarsely. "I told you."

"All right then," Abbadon sighed and stood up, moving her wrist in an arc again to only get the same reaction. She supposed that this time she would at least wait until the hunter started to scream while she paced around the woman's body.

Illuminated by only the dusk light, the room suddenly grew brighter as shadows began to elongate and shift positions. Shocked by the change, Abbadon turned back to the far wall where the only sigils there were in the entire room were scribbled on to the windows—as she had said—and her demon was halfway done with the last one when he stopped in a state of awe as he looked to the light source outside.

"The wards-!" Before she could finish her sentence, the other demon began to scream and fall back hard against the floor, scratching and clawing at his eyes. A high pitched shriek pierced through the surrounding area, the glass of the windows shattering inward, then the light was suddenly gone.

Abbadon only had time to notice that her captive was no longer in writhing pain and that her demon lackey was dead with burned sockets where his eyes once were, when the doors of their room crashed open.

Catherine coughed again—definitely spitting up blood—and was able to barely see their new guest through her rapidly fading eyesight. It was him again, the angel, only that he wasn't nearly as roughed up as before and he wore a smile this time upon seeing them. In part, she was thankful the smile didn't reach his eyes.

He stopped walking a few feet away from them while he paused to take in the scene. Dead demon, tortured human, and uh... "I'm sorry. Who are you?" Balthazar asked, pointing to the remaining demon in confusion.

"Abbadon," she replied with a smirk, "Former Knight of Hell turned Queen."

Balthazar only squinted at her. "Abbadon... Abbadon. Abbadon..." He looked away for a moment, then back over to her. "Aren't you dead?"

Catherine tried to swallow and force herself to stay awake while Abbadon tilted her head to the side, eying the angel up and down. "Balthazar, right?" she inquired. "You're one to talk."

"I'm everyone's favorite hypocrite, darling," he smirked back, stepping closer to the pair to position himself between the hunter and demon. To Cat's surprise, Abbadon stepped away as he came closer. "Now," he continued once happily between the women, "I think it's time for you to leave."

Abbadon paid his order no mind. "I've been looking for you-"

"I don't care," he cut her off.

Her smile slipped away and she continued. "You don't understand. I've been looking for you," she said again slower. "I need your help."

Balthazar paused for a moment, then scoffed as his grin grew a little larger. "I don't think so, sweetheart."

"You don't under-" She stopped talking again as blinding white light radiated from Balthazar.

Catherine, for the second time that evening, screwed her eyes shut again and turned away from the light. Once shaded better, her eyes flickered open to catch his shadow falling against the wall beyond her, the bones of his wings spreading as what feathers remained precariously held on. She didn't have time to think on the sight until a muscle spasm in her lower abdomen forced up more blood into her mouth and she passed out.

"I said," Balthazar answered back lowly, taking careful steps closer to the demon before him, "no."

Abbadon stood her ground and visibly hardened her resolve before stepping towards him. "I _need_ your-"

The angel raised his hand and the room was swallowed in light for half of a second. When the light died away, Abbadon was gone—ran away. Balthazar groaned and turned back to the hunter, belatedly realizing that he should have probably told her to close her eyes when he noticed the state she was in. He gave a louder groan and rolled his eyes, moving closer over to her.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake," he muttered to himself, kneeling down to the woman, carefully picking her up, "Is that your hunting tactic? Pass out and die on top of the enemy? This is the second bloody time." He continued to grumble as he carried her away, healing her as he walked and leaving the other body where it lay.

* * *

Catherine, once again, jerked awake in a panic. This time, she felt that her panic was justified as the first person she saw was the angel. He had his hands up, backing away from her, likely because her own hands had flown to where she usually kept her gun. Breathing hard, she dared to glance around for her surroundings, noticing that she was on her own porch swing right outside of her house.

She looked back to him. "What happened?"

"I saved your sorry ass is what happened," he replied with a smile, still slowly backing away.

Catherine took a few more deep breaths while she looked around in a mix of confusion and fear. "You killed Abbadon?"

"No." He dropped his hands and began to walk down her porch steps. "Crazy bitch got away."

"You're just leaving?" Cat, without thinking, stood up as the angel stopped and looked back at her in amusement. She was completely lost and he was just going to leave?

He gave a little chuckle in response and kept walking. "Way I hear it, you're out for my neck. Best to keep our distance, ey?"

She blinked at him as he walked further away, even turning his back on her. He knew what she had been up to. He knew where she lived. Why had he saved her, brought her back? She didn't like being used. "Wait!"

As if in utter annoyance, he stopped his walk again, but didn't turn to her. Catherine licked her lips, deciding to ask him on something else last minute. "Balthazar, right?" After a moment, he turned back to her, waiting for her to continue, so she did so. "What happened to your wings?"

He raised a quizzical eyebrow. "My wings?"

"I saw them," she answered before he could keep going. "Not them, but a shadow. They were-... You're hurt."

Balthazar sent another hollow laugh her way. "Yes, well, falling from Heaven wasn't exactly a graceful dive. More like... being pushed out of a jet really." She only blinked back at him and he could see an internal battle going on within herself. "At any rate, darling," he continued, giving her a wink and following his previous path, "I won't be far."

Her brow creased once his words registered. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" she yelled after him but he didn't oblige her with a reply. She gave it another moment, before rushing inside and locking the doors behind her.

The car was still at the river, as far as she knew, and that pistol and knife might as well be lost. Thankfully, she had littered the house with weapons and took another knife from the nearby bookcase, cutting the palm of her hand open. She didn't have a whole lot to go on, but she remembered enough of the sigils that the demon had drawn on the windows. She would have to chance it until she learned more.

Catherine began going around the house as quickly as possible to doodle on the walls, then collected several books to look up any information she could on her current crisis. For now, she pushed aside the thought of looking for more ways to kill angels and instead began her search for Knights of Hell.

* * *

**And another one down. Woohoo! They finally got to talk a little more!**

**The next chapter will be the REAL end of the introduction and setting the grounds for the whole fic. Or at least the start of it. I have a couple of plans up my sleeve for later.**

**Let me know what you guys think, if you'd like. I really appreciated hearing some good reviews from you guys last time. :)**

**Thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

**I'm happy that you guys seem to be enjoying the writing style and pace. Thanks, folks. Here's another one for you all.**

* * *

Catherine had spent the following day in paranoia. She stayed in her home, not having heard anything from the angel, demons, or this so-called help that Matt was supposedly sending over. Someone had probably gotten to them first.

She had used her time reading up on what she could, finding nothing that could actually be of any real use to her. The Bible didn't have any new information than when she first read through it. There was no information on any sort of hierarchy or leaderships of Hell, even Knights. It was all very tight-knit and she didn't like it. If this was so secret, she probably shouldn't be in the middle of it.

Day began to turn into night and the only angel for miles stood outside of her house, leaning his shoulder against a tree. Abbadon wasn't done, not by a long shot. She had wanted him for some reason and it was just easier to wait by the girl's side than to have her scooped up again like last time. Apparently, the demon thought there was some sort of connection between the two of them.

So, he waited in pale moonlight, trying to remember what it was like so long ago to face off against a Knight of Hell. She was probably much stronger now, but it concerned him to know what she wanted with him.

Everything grew quiet far too quickly for his tastes. The crickets stopped, the wind quit. She was here. Balthazar pushed off of the tree and began to walk towards the house, when he began to sense the demons coming in black smoke.

"I asked nicely," Abbadon's voice carried across the wind.

He turned just in time for her fist to connect.

* * *

Catherine looked up from her research, having sworn that she had heard something, but the noise had stopped. She rose slowly from the computer and books, grabbing her pistol silently. In a few paces, she made it halfway to the window and stopped again to listen... only there was nothing to listen to. It was far too quiet.

Suddenly, a loud howl of the wind shook the house, breaking the windows and scattering the salt lines. The devil's traps were still in place, but they weren't as numerous as they should have been. Perhaps making a safe room a few years ago would have been a good idea, but she never planned to fight against something like this.

Cat tried to run before being encircled by the black smoke, a couple of them appearing around her. She fired shots at their heads in an attempt to slow them down while trying to run and break free of the remaining smoke. It wasn't long until one of them slammed her against a wall and she fell to the floor.

Now there were four sets of feet in front of her, one of them approaching fast. Once he was close enough, about to do whatever he was about to do—she figured killing her—Catherine sat up quickly to slam the blade that he was about to stab her with into his own abdomen. From the look on its face and the light show just beneath the skin, she knew it had killed the monster.

The other three approached all at once. She yanked the blade out of the first demon and slashed at another's throat.

* * *

Balthazar's back fell hard against rocks lining the edge of a brook. Before he could attempt getting up, Abbadon already had her hold on him, twisting him up like she had done to the hunter the night before, with a hand around his neck and an angel sword to his eyes. To his credit, she was more roughed up than he was, but it didn't matter in this particular moment.

"I need your help," she said again breathlessly while nearly straddling him, the first words she had spoken since she first ran into him in the night.

His lips pulled up into a smirk. "You mentioned that, dear." His next words were stopped as she drove the blade into his shoulder. Bal gasped after a second of cringing. "Oh, please," he breathed, "Whatever is it that you need?"

"Your grace," she answered him in a smile, "and you're going to give it to me or, so help me, I will take it."

He only gave a pained laugh to her threat. "And what does a demon need with an angel's grace?"

"You don't like Crowley, right?" she smiled, "I'm going to kill him. I can't do it without your grace."

"Yes, you can-" Abbadon twisted the blade, making his words come up short again.

"No, I can't!" she growled. "It's stronger if you take it out yourself. No one knows an angel's grace better than the angel. Give it to me or I'll go for silver."

Balthazar took another deep breath. "You can go to Hell, is what you can do."

"Fine!" she spat and ripped the blade away from his shoulder. Abbadon reared back to drive the blade into his throat, when she sensed something and turned just in time to stop another blade from entering her ribs.

She parried the second angel blade and telepathically threw Catherine back a few yards. The distraction gave Balthazar the time to push the demon off of him and drive her into the water. "What are you really after, Abby?" he screamed in anger towards her once he was standing again.

Abbadon quickly got back to her feet, staying in the water and watching the angel stalk along the edge closely. "I need Crowley," she growled, "I need the Winchesters. There's more going on than you think, Balthazar. You've been gone for a long time. It's a whole new world... Now _give it to me_!"

She had started to approach, when she dodged just in time for the angel blade to mar the skin of her cheek. The hunter was on her feet again, pointing her pistol to Abbadon daringly.

"These aren't normal bullets," Catherine told her levelly, "I'm not that stupid... Now why don't you tell us what's going on?"

"Oh, please... You think I'm _weak_?"

"No," the hunter answered, looking down to the demon's feet, "You would be screaming by now if you were. I dumped a few gallons of holy water up stream because I knew more of you were out here. That's how I found you two getting playful behind the bushes."

Abbadon watched as her ankles began to smolder. Soon, that was going to start hurting a whole lot more as the water really rushed in. She looked back up to see them both smirking to her. She just glowered. "I'll be back."

"No-" Catherine tried to interject, but Abbadon was already gone... She turned to point the gun at Balthazar.

He looked back at her, not really surprised. "I suppose you're expecting a thank you now."

"What was that?" she asked him. "Why do they want me dead and why does she have a kill list? Who are they?"

Balthazar thought critically for a moment, shifting his jaw as he did so before nodding. "We should go... We have a lot to talk about. First, let's get that blade back, yes? It's quite invaluable."

He began walking into the stream to retrieve the sword while she looked at him curiously, following him with the sights of her pistol. "Go? If you think you're going into my house, you have another-"

"Not your home," he interrupted, picking the blade out of the water bed where it had buried itself. "They know where you live. They'll be back, probably tomorrow night. Like I said," he started walking back to her, ignoring the gun, "we have a lot to talk about."

* * *

Once he had assured her that the demons wouldn't be coming back that night, she had set him out on the porch and they talked about things she didn't feel like she should know. He told her about Dean and Sam, how they stopped the Apocalypse, how they tried to stop Purgatory. He also told her about the archangels and Castiel, Lucifer and Crowley. It was quite unsettling, though he left out any mention of his death aside from the fact that he had died and was resurrected the night she had found him.

In return, Catherine informed him on any major news she had come across since the year of his supposed death. A lot of it didn't make sense to her, while it somehow made some sense to him. She didn't know about a lot of things that the Winchesters did, including the Leviathan or the tablets, so Balthazar wasn't aware of any of these coming to pass either.

At the end of their discussion, they watched each other from opposite sides of the porch; Balthazar sitting on the swing and studying her curiously, Catherine standing against the railing and watching him for any ill moves.

Finally, he spoke again. "I'm not going to kill you. I won't get anything out of it. I only followed you for information, after all."

Cat sighed tiredly. "Then why do they keep coming after me?"

"Because I stay around you. Easy way to draw me out," he answered, "but leaving your side won't work. You pissed off the Queen of Hell, dear. That doesn't come without a price." Catherine stayed quiet, so he continued. "I need to find Sam and Dean Winchester. From the way she talked, they know where Crowley is. It's the best leverage we got, for the both of us."

She bit her lip and looked back at him. "I thought you don't like them."

"I don't," was his honest answer, "but I feel as if they owe me." Bal leaned back in the swing and sighed. "Come with me or don't. Either way, you can't stay here."

She watched him closely for a moment, studying him just as he did to her moments ago. At length, she shifted and looked around, out into the yard and the long driveway past her car. "The morning," Catherine finally answered. "We'll leave at daylight... I'll mark off the sigils so that you can come in." With that, she pushed off of the railing and went back inside.

Surprised, Balthazar watched as she left him on the porch, curious as to why she would be willing to let him into her home. He quickly realized that she had no other choice but to trust him now.

* * *

**I seem to just be making this shorter. The next one should be pretty long, so we'll see. They're finally going to set out on their big journey with lots of twists and turns involved! Hope you enjoyed this thing so far, guys. Thanks for reading.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Okay! So, it's been a long time since I've updated, but that's okay. The story is still well and truly there, don't worry. Let's get this ball going again, shall we?**

* * *

Catherine, true to her hunter nature, traveled light. She only needed the one back pack that was sitting on her bed while she stuffed clothes and ammunition into it. It was a little sad that she had to leave the book she had been reading, but she figured she'd live.

"So."

Balthazar was met with facing her hand gun as she whirled around on him. He gave a smile. "Sorry if I startled you, sweetheart."

Stupid to draw the gun. It was the blade that could kill them... Cat huffed and put away her gun again, keeping an eye on him while she continued packing. "Didn't hear you flap in."

"Used the door," he replied offhandedly, looking around at the pictures on her wardrobe. She didn't bother to stop him or direct his attention away. Just rolled her eyes and went about her own business again, waiting for him to say something else.

When he didn't, she turned to look at him again to see what all he was up to. Of course, she had very few reasons to trust any angel, especially this one, so while it wasn't wise to willingly hang around one, it was even worse to leave them unattended. At least, that was how she saw it.

Balthazar, though, was still looking at her pictures curiously. "How old are you?" he finally asked, wheeling around to face her again.

In turn, Catherine gave him just as curious look before slowly going back to her business. "Thirty-two," she finally answered, "Why?"

"You look young," he replied, setting a picture back down again. "I thought you were some pre-teen thing waving a gun around, but I can't tell the difference with all of you humans anyway."

She gave a halfhearted chuckle, zipping up the bag. "That would be something. Start talking to a stranger and think it was me."

"Could you imagine their confusion?" he muttered, poking at the fading dry wall in her room. "Are you ready yet? I could have literally been there yesterday."

"If that's true, then where are they?" Catherine threw her bag over her shoulder and walked out of the room, leaving him to follow or do whatever. It was one thing to leave an angel unattended. She figured it was another to try and tell them what to do. She couldn't help already being annoyed with him, though.

With a roll of his eyes, Balthazar just followed after her. "It was a figure of speech." Only half true, but that was his argument. "Do you even have a starting point to find them?"

"No," she answered, stopping outside of the front door. "You know of them, apparently. I was hoping you would."

He stepped out, too, moving to her car with a chuckle and leaving her behind. "Look at us. A human and angel working together to kick the teeth out of more humans and angels. And hopefully demons, too, if we can get our hands on that little shrimp... When did you get your car back?"

"Is that a yes or no?" she muttered to herself, locking the front door and, therefore, the house. That done, she replied louder. "I walked back for it while you were all... doing whatever it was you were doing. Plotting my death or something." Catherine put her bag in the car through the back window with a sigh. "Do you have a lead on these guys or not, angel boy?"

"I was under the impression I possessed a man, but I did call you a pre-teen, so I suppose we're even."

He noticed that Catherine had stopped her unhurried movements to just give him a long, lingering glare of impatience... Fine. "Maybe," Balthazar finally answered, "I haven't been on Earth for a few years, apparently, but it's a start if I ever heard of one."

A few years... Catherine gave a sigh. "It's more than I got. Okay, get in."

"In that?" Balthazar pointed to the car in surprise.

She stopped to give him that same lingering glare again. "Unless you want to fly there, which I've heard isn't working like it used to."

His mouth twisted into a grimace as he looked the car from hood to trunk, then quickly looked up to her. "Can't we walk?"

"How far away is your starting point?"

"I think you people call it South Dakota."

Catherine opened the creaky door of her muscle car and grunted a "Get in" to her guest, who just groaned and got into the car, too.

* * *

Not even an hour onto the road, Balthazar had become impatient and he was hyper-aware of it. Things never took this long and now everything was going to take ages. He might have been around for awhile, but waiting was never a big forte for him. Well, for some things, yes, but not little things like travel.

Well, he did have some entertainment. "What am I supposed to expect?" he asked after a long while of silence. "With all the humans and things, I mean. For goodness sake, moving from one place to the other is going to take bloody ages. What's going to happen next?"

Catherine just gave him a strange look that did not go unnoticed by him. "Aren't you guys supposed to be all powerful and all knowing or something?"

"I apologize if I skipped out on Humans 101 in Bible Camp," he groaned, "All I know was that your night life used to be absolutely lovely, you make very interesting drinks, and you have a wonderful imagination when it comes to sex and I mean _wonderful_ in every sense of the word."

She glanced from him to the road again, brow furrowed... "I'm... glad you think so."

"Getting from point A to B," he continued on, "is going to take half a century at this rate, but that doesn't include all of our stops in C, D, and E, which I'm sure are bound to happen, am I correct?"

"Sioux Falls is a two day trip," she nodded, "so stopping in C and D are a given. Humans have needs."

"Needs?" Balthazar gave the woman a skeptical look and, after a beat of silence, tried to guess. "Sex?"

"No." Despite the fact that she was driving, Catherine took a second to rub at her eyes. "Food. Sleep. Human stuff. I thought angels knew a lot more about humanity than this."

"We never really cared," he shrugged. "I don't have to eat or sleep."

"I know you don't," she replied tiredly. She was traveling around with an angel; basically trusting the guy. This was so ridiculous and risky, but here she is, talking to the angel like he's a child that knows a little too much about sex and not enough about food.

"No, no." Balthazar straightened up in his seat with renewed purpose. "I mean I could drive while you're asleep. We could get there much quicker."

Catherine wrinkled her brow. "I thought some of the reason I was here was because you didn't know how to drive."

"I could learn." With that, he began reaching over towards her, only to have her block his movements and push his arm back over towards him.

"No touching," she warned in the same tone, "or I'll have to clean angel brains out of these seats."

"Oh, please," he muttered to himself, but upon receiving no comebacks, he settled back into his seat further. "Fine. I hope you enjoy C and D as much as I will."

"Think of it as the scenic route. We'll be there before you know it."

Balthazar grunted in response with crossed arms, looking out of the passenger window again.

* * *

**There'll be a lot more of them in the next chapter. Sorry for the late update, but things have been busy over here. I never stopped writing. Just chipped away at it whenever I had time, really. And sorry that it's short. I wanted to update. **

**Hope you like it! Please send reviews and let me know, guys!**


	6. Chapter 6

**NOTE: I thought Abbadon was going to play a much bigger part in this fic, but I'm starting to think I was mistaken. So, there'll be some other characters to fill her spot on the "Featured Characters" list up there, but I'm not going to add them until they're introduced so it won't ruin any surprises.**

**Also, I'm attempting to change page breaks, so we'll see how that goes, too. (PSA: IT DIDN'T WORK SO I HAD TO DELETE THE CHAPTER, EDIT, REUPLOAD, IT WAS A MESS. Won't happen again. lol Sorry, folks.)**

**Okie doke, here's chapter six!**

* * *

One would think that traveling with an angel had its own rewards. Catherine thought no such thing. At first, Balthazar was tolerable, if not annoying. He had quickly become agitated that he had to travel with a human and, therefore, agitated Catherine all the more.

Her last two meals consisted of very slow chewing while having a glaring contest with the most intolerable angel in existence.

At first they had talked. Traded a few stories about monster hunting, current events, and the like, but they both grew more annoyed with the other as time grew on, so their time together had been composed of heated silences for the most part.

Needless to say, both Catherine and Balthazar were extremely happy to finally reach Sioux Falls in the early morning and find the fabled salvage yard.

"Finally," Cat sighed, parking the car along a row of junked automobiles and getting out, more than prepared to hug these Winchester people and dump her angel on them.

Her spirits fell a bit when Balthazar, once also climbing out of the car, looked around the place with a frown and called to her. "Wait."

Heading in the direction of what looked like an old garage shop, she turned back to him. "What?" then quickly added, "Don't ruin this for me."

"The house," he said, pointing to a tree past a row of cars. "It used to peak over this mess."

Catherine quickly started to jog over in the direction he had gestured in, having no quick comebacks for that one. She stopped short once she found the charred remains of a structure that she could only assume was the house Bal had mentioned. With a tired groan, she rubbed at her eyes.

Balthazar slowly walked around her to take a closer look at the rubble, but it wasn't like he could glean anything from it all. This looked as if it had happened a while ago. He crouched down to pick at a piece of black wood, trying to come to terms with just how long he's been gone for, but his thoughts were broken by Catherine's words and he was thankful for it.

"Do you think they're still in town?"

He looked up to what still stood and back down to the piece in his hand before throwing it to the ground with a sigh. "No," he answered, straightening back up and turning to look at her as he spoke. "Knowing these boys, this wasn't an accident. They ran away from what was trying to kill them, but this happened well over a year ago. Nature's begun to take it back and I honestly don't think they would stand for it if they were around."

"Then we ask around," she replied, folding her arms across her chest, "unless you have another place in mind."

"Afraid not, love," Balthazar sighed again, flopping his arms to his side and moving around her to go back to the car. "Not even sure what talking to locals would turn up. Either no one knows or they aren't willing to tell."

She turned around to follow after him, gradually getting annoyed again, but it wasn't the angel's fault this time. "What else do we do, then? Searching around the property would help, but the trail is over a year old, like you said... Don't you have some sort of way to find people on a spiritual level or something?"

"I would have done that already," he replied from over his shoulder. "The boys have anti-detection sigils etched into their ribs so that angels won't find them and I can't sense the old man. He could have gotten one, too. Who knows?"

Catherine rubbed the back of her neck in thought. They couldn't very well leave empty handed and waiting for Abbadon to show back up wouldn't be very wise. Balthazar seemed just as trapped as she was, because he simply leaned against the car and crossed his arms instead of getting in.

She stopped a few feet in front of him, looking around the junk heap. "We might as well stay a night in town, anyway," she finally spoke up. "Asking people might get too much attention, but looking around can't hurt."

* * *

Catherine was typing away on her laptop when Balthazar sauntered back into their motel room, announcing his presence by a slam of the door. "I've snooped all over the police headquarters and the town hall," he informs her before falling into a seat across from her on the table. "There's a surprising amount of nothing."

She grimaced. "Not that surprising. I've searched on every local database there is, but there's nothing about any fire at that salvage yard or anyone by the names Bobby Singer or Sam and Dean Winchester. It's like they weren't here... or-"

"A big cover up." The angel leaned on to the table, picking at her water bottle. "Do ever drink liquor?"

At the change of subject, she looked up to him in slight confusion. "I've been driving."

He just stared back in the same confusion, like she just told him something that was completely irrelevant, so Cat shook her head and drew her attention back to her computer.

"Anyway," she continued while he just looked back to her water bottle. "I can't say if it's connected or not, but it sounds like there's a job just south of here."

"You mean your sort of jobs," Bal half-muttered, leaning back in his seat again with her water, apparently stolen now.

She just twisted her lips and continued skimming the article. "Dad and his kid claim that things are being moved around their home, strange sounds in their walls, a lot of household accidents..."

"Sounds like homicidal mice."

"Yeah, but the kid claims his dead mother is living in his closet," she sighed and leaned back in her chair, too, stretching her back.

Balthazar rephrased his earlier deduction. "Homicidal mice and a kid that needs therapy."

"Maybe," she straightened up again, "but what if it is a ghost?"

"How would that even help us?" he asked, looking at her through his newly acquired water bottle. "If you were sure this ghost was connected or even if you were sure this was an actual ghost, then you might have something, dear."

"All right." Catherine's lips pulled up along the edges as she closed her laptop. "I guess we'll just sit here and... enjoy each other's company."

She smiled at him while Balthazar peeked his blue eyes over her water bottle in disapproval. It took another minute until he groaned and slouched into his seat. "_Fine_."

"You'll need an ID," Catherine said, immediately standing up and heading towards the door.

"A what?"

* * *

Balthazar followed Catherine outside to see her digging in the trunk of her car. He walked around her to peer in and quickly rolled his eyes at all the sigils and artillery. "You hunters are insane."

"Please," she scoffs, digging through a bag of fake ID's. "This is low profile for us." Finally, she pulls one out of the bottom of the bag that should fit him well enough. At least it was for a male. She had been hunting alone for so long, she was surprised she had any of those left. "Here. Just keep that on you. Your clothes... should do, I guess."

He took the fake badge and looked down at his usual attire before giving her a look. "My clothing options are fine, thank you," he scoffed, then looked at his new ID. "I can't believe you lot get away with impersonating federal agents at every turn."

"It's for a good cause," Catherine answered him, digging further in the trunk for some decent rock salt bullets for her pistol, just in case. She also dug out another older pistol and handed that over to him. "This, too."

Balthazar was in the middle of tucking the badge away in his blazer when he gave her a very dumbfounded look. Cat rolled her eyes. "Feds don't go around unarmed. Trust me, I'm not crazy enough to hand an angel a loaded gun."

With a grimace, he took the unarmed piece with two fingers. "As if it were the worst weapon I've ever held."

"It's one you don't know how to use," she muttered back, finally pulling away and closing the trunk. "I can just see you shooting me in the foot before we even get there."

He grumbled while tucking the gun away, too. "I told you, I'm a fast learner."

"You are not probing my brain," she told him for at least the fifth time since their adventure started.

He just gave her a little sarcastic smile with a tilt of his head. "Don't trust me?"

She gave him a glare in return. "Cute." She then turned away to go back to their room. "Let me change and we'll go."

"Is it human women or just humans in general that take forever to do anything?" he asked, but received only a glare in reply as she just stopped to look back at him. Instead, he groaned and leaned against the back tire of the Challenger. "I hate you."

"Hate you, too, sweetie," she muttered, disappearing back into their room.

* * *

**And another chapter done. This one was somewhat long, so I hope you guys enjoy that. Also, thank you for the review last time, folks. And a HUGE thank you for all the follows/faves I've been getting for this. I'm glad it seems well received so far.**

**Really enjoying that this fic is on a roll now. We're getting close to some big things, woohoo! (Though, I wouldn't be surprised if this thing gets well over 20 chapters for all the stuff I have planned right now. At least, I hope.) **

**Thanks for reading!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay, this time I'll pay attention to page breaks. Here we go!**

* * *

"You look stupid," Balthazar muttered under his breath as they began approaching a house from where they parked the car by the curb.

Catherine looked down at her business suit with a frown and back over to him. "I didn't realize you were the Holy Fashion Diva," she muttered back.

"Everyone in Heaven wears those stupid monkey suits," he began to grumble. "I don't care what people say, they look stupid on everyone."

"Oh yeah, Mr. Slacks and a Suit Jacket," Cat whispered once they were under the porch and she rang the doorbell. "I can definitely see your stance on this formal business."

He just waved down at himself. "This is tasteful. This says I like to party. Your suit jacket says I like to do paper work."

"Bite me, Choir Boy."

"You're going to have to start coming up with better nicknames, too."

The door opened to reveal a middle aged man in glasses. He looked between the two of them curiously and asked, "Can I help you?"

"Yes, sir." Catherine pulled out her fake ID, flipping hers open... After a glance towards Balthazar, he remembered to show off his, too, so she continued while putting her badge away. "I'm Agent Kent; this is Agent Connor. We're here to investigate your case."

The man gave them both an odd look. "Federal agents are interested in my," he paused for a moment to find the right word before deciding to use the same one the woman had used, "case?"

Balthazar spoke up with a happy smile before Cat could get a word in. "We specialize in your sort of... cases."

He looked between the two of them again and shrugged. "Okay, uh. Come in. Come in." Moving aside, he waved them in. "Living room's on the first right. Can I get you anything?"

Catherine answered him before Balthazar could start again. "No, sir. Thank you."

Suddenly, there was a whisper in her ear. "Connor and Kent. You couldn't think of something better?"

With a smile, she looked back to the angel before sitting on the sofa. "You caught that reference. Congratulations."

The man entered the room behind and waved for Balthazar to sit, who took the seat beside the hunter with almost a huff. Once they were all seated, Catherine began. "So, Mr. Hendricks, can you tell us when exactly you noticed things moving around in your home?"

"Ah well," Hendricks gave a relieved sigh, very willing to talk about his story, "I actually wasn't the first one to notice anything. It was my son, Daniel. He kept talking about the curtains closing on their own a few weeks ago, but I thought he was just acting out or something, until I started seeing, uh... _strange_ things, too."

"Can you define strange?" Catherine inquired while Balthazar, the most bored angel she believed existed, began poking at something on the end table.

The man being questioned shrugged, trying to think back and not seem insane. "Things were just... moving with no one there. I never really _saw_ anything, but me and my son are the only ones here and, well, rats aren't big enough to move plates or chairs away after you look in a different direction for... a... moment..."

Hendricks' attention was brought to Balthazar, who had found a little ceramic figure of an angel with a wire halo. He was currently trying to jam the halo around the angel's neck when he realized he was being watched and stopped with a grin. "Sorry, I just get a kick out of these things," he explained, earning a confused nod from Mr. Hendricks. "That's supposed to be Gabriel, right?"

"Um," the man blinked quickly to the ceramic and back again, shifting. "Yes. My wife collected angels before she passed. She revered Gabriel the most, so I kept that one after."

Despite the heavy subject, Balthazar chuckled and flicked the halo again. "That's adorable."

Catherine elbowed him in the ribs – earning an _oomf_ as he quickly straightened up – and tried to take back the conversation. "Is there any way that we can speak to your son, Mr. Hendricks?"

Happy to get back to the earlier topic, Hendricks nodded. "I'd love to, but he's at school right now. It'll be another hour until he gets home."

She nodded. "Well, have you noticed any other strange things around the home? Cold spots in the air? Odd smells?"

"It's been a little colder in the house than usual, but the heater's working fine," he shrugged. "It's been bugging me, but that's all I know about cold... Is that important?"

"Just going through the list," she smiled. "One last thing. Do you mind if my partner and I take a look around?"

"Not at all," he answered again, quite compliant, "The first floor is the basics, the second is the bedrooms. Do you need me to show you around or anything?"

"No, no. We can handle it." Cat stood as Balthazar watched, realizing belatedly that it was time for him to stand, too. "Thank you. We'll let you know if we need anything."

Hendricks stood with a smile. "I'll just be in the kitchen then."

* * *

"Shouldn't the angel go first?" Balthazar asked, following closely behind the hunter wielding her pistol in front of her.

Catherine hardly looked at him, pacing slowly down the upstairs hallway. "As much as I would enjoy tying you to a stick and dangling you out in front of me, we're all better off if you have my back."

He peeked inside of a room, frowning. "I'm beginning to rethink my life decisions," he began and Catherine knew it was going to be another whiny monologue. "I only followed you for information on why I'm alive and injured. Now I'm in the middle of some sort of pissing contest with demons who want my grace for God knows what, but who cares? Because I'm out with a human hunting a _ghost_." Cat rolled her eyes while he kept grumbling. "How the mighty have fallen."

She bit the inside of her cheek as they slowly began to approach the last door in the hallway. Had to be the kid's room. "Don't you think that hunting a ghost is better than being dead?"

"I don't know," he sneered, "I didn't have to listen to you and ride shotgun in your car all day."

"I am so close to shooting you right now."

He firmly grabbed her shoulder to stop her and Catherine was reminded that she wasn't telling off just any old asshole. This one had incredible power and she wondered if that comment actually pissed him off. Upon quickly turning to face him – or try to run away – she noticed that he wasn't angry but looking up at the ceiling.

"What?" she asked, looking up and seeing nothing but white tiles.

"Sigils." Balthazar reached up and touched the ceiling tile with the tips of his fingers, with an expression of confusion and thought on his face that Catherine didn't think an angel should wear.

"What kind?" she asked, looking between him and the ceiling. "Wards? Against what? You're already here."

He shook his head. "No, it's summonings... I can't tell for what, though," Bal thought aloud and lowered his arm. "They're old, but they're part Enochian. Must be for the ghost."

"Whoa, whoa. Wait." Catherine closed her eyes for a second and shook her head. "Enochian? An angel summoned a ghost here?" He just shrugged, still studying the ceiling, so she tried again. "Why?"

"Bored?" he guessed, then looked down to her again. His eyes quickly landed on what was _behind _Catherine and he noticed that she sensed it the same time he saw it.

She began to turn quickly, but Balthazar was faster and pushed her hard against the wall while his other hand shot out to smite the spirit. The ghost, a gray and withered woman, wrapped her boney hand around his wrist and pushed back with enough strength to actually stand against him. For a moment, he was too shocked to do anything until a shot rang out and the ghost vanished.

"The sigils!" Catherine barked, before two hands grabbed her from behind and pulled her through the wall before the angel could reach out.

He hesitated for a second, nearly in a panic, but moved his hand towards the ceiling and set it on fire.

Catherine's back, taking a rather nice beating today, hit the floor hard. The glow-in-the-dark stars and planets stuck to the ceiling was enough indication to tell her that she was in the boy's room, which was a terrible place to be in this case.

She began to sit up, but the ghost quickly knocked her back down just in time for her to fire another shot at it. The ghost vanished for a brief second right before reappearing on top of her, its leather fingers around her throat.

The ghost yelped, like she was in pain, and quickly drew back from Catherine. It was another force that finally pulled and rolled the thing off of the hunter. Balthazar kneeled over the spirit and pressed his hand to its forehead. In a blast of light and a terrible scream, the ghost was reduced to ash and then nothing.

He panted there, hand still pressed against the floor, before turning to look at Catherine. She looked back to him, breathing hard and a bit shaken, but okay more or less. However, she nearly jumped at a sudden, very loud beeping noise right before she began to smell smoke.

Balthazar looked back to the hallway, then to her and gave a flashy smile. "The sigils are gone."

* * *

**It's rather short, but I think we all deserve a chapter after tonight's episode. I'm going to try to make them longer from here on out, plus they shouldn't take as much time to update anymore. The next chapter may be a week or so away, at least, but after that we should be good and steady with up keep. We'll see, but that's the game plan.**

**Thank you all for reading! And I'm happy to see a lot more new readers/followers/reviewers. Thank you guys so much. I'm happy to see people are enjoying this as much as I am.**

**(I read through it again and noticed so so many errors, so this is the re-uploaded version. I'm going to have to proofread better next time and not at 2 in the morning. Thanks for reading, again!)**


	8. Chapter 8

**WOW! I got a lot of views for that last chapter. Most views I've gotten on this fic yet! Not sure if it was the jump in reviews or the mid-season finale. Either way, I'm happy to have more readers on board!**

**Finals are done and I'm out of school for the time being, so I'm hoping that'll mean more updates. We'll find out, I'm sure.**

* * *

Catherine was currently sitting on the edge of the bed in the motel room she had rented in the new town. One hand was balancing an ice pack on her shoulder while the other steadied a glass of whiskey that she very much needed.

That ghost wasn't normal. Nothing about anything on that hunt was normal. Balthazar said it practically _screamed _of Winchesters due to just the strangeness of the entire thing and it had occurred to her that they perhaps stumbled across a trap meant for them. Set by an angel, though? Eh, anything was possible, that was for sure.

She was looking at her computer set up on the bed, when the door to her room opened and Balthazar's foot closed it back again, with a load in his arms. "I got your bloody books," he announced gruffly. "Those people in those libraries are near insane with how they- Is that whiskey?"

He changed subjects so quickly that it took her a second to figure out that he was pointing to the glass in her hand. Right. On top of being obnoxious, he's also an alcoholic. She smacked her lips. "Yes, it is. I made a run while you were away."

"What happened to your driving excuse?" he asked, dumping all of the books on the bed beside her before swiping the bottle off of the end table. He didn't seem concerned with an answer as he began hunting down a glass for himself.

She rolled her shoulder with a huff, just continuing to scroll through the pages on her laptop (which was yielding nothing, by the way). "My back warranted it," she mumbled darkly to herself, "Including that insane ghost, ancient sigils even an angel hasn't seen before, and setting that man's house on fire... Besides, I'm not driving right now."

"At least you finally found some spirit," Balthazar happily said, leaning against the kitchenette counter and pouring a glass. "Find anything on that technology of yours?"

"Nothing that you haven't already told me," she sighed and then glanced up to him. "Except for one thing... just a little south of here."

He nearly choked on his first sip. "Another one!?"

"Another _ghost_," she confirmed with a nod. "Since it's so close, it has to be the same thing. Same angel."

With an exaggerated moan, Balthazar pushed himself off of the counter, walked around Catherine's growing pile of studies, and sat down on the bed beside her. "Those boys left a long time ago. If this was a trap for them, you would think that whoever was doing this knew they weren't here."

Catherine gave him the quick once over when he got so close to her. That was a new one for him. Balthazar seemed to enjoy keeping the dirty human at arm's length whenever possible, but she shrugged the small change off. "These could have been set a long time ago," she suggested, "or maybe they aren't traps for the Winchesters. Just... something about the area, maybe."

"Well, there has to be a pattern to it, assuming it is the same ridiculous creature," he mumbled to himself and sipped at his drink again. "Are there more of these things around here? Any more of your famous leads?"

"No," she huffed, taking the ice pack off and waving to the screen. "This one just popped up while I was searching for more information. It definitely wasn't there yesterday."

"Mmm." She looked back over to the angel, who was happily savoring his glass of liquor. "I forgot how good you people make these drinks," he nearly laughed while Cat rolled her eyes. "We should go out and get something fruity."

"Yeah," she sighed, hefting up some of the books he brought in onto her lap. "Maybe after we figure out what's going on."

Balthazar grumbled lowly and finished off his glass with a gulp. "You can be such a bore." After a moment of her flipping through some pages, he pointed to the computer again. "What is south, anyway?"

She slowly looked up at him. "Other than the ghost?"

He shrugged in return. "If it is an angel that's one step ahead of us, maybe we can just cut the poor bastard off before he hits another town."

After a minor thought, Catherine snatched up the laptop again to find a map. "Well, we're almost in Nebraska, so they're probably already across the line." Once the map loaded up, she frowned. "Next town is Sioux City, if they stay on the interstate."

"Tada." He smiled to himself and got up again. "I'm going to get another glass to celebrate. You want some more?"

"Celebrate?" Catherine watched him all but saunter back to the counter. "We only have another _maybe_ to find him. We can't ditch this ghost on a _maybe_."

He took that as a "no" and groaned again. "Well, if it means that much to you, we can always go get the thing tonight." Balthazar craned his neck to find a clock in the room while he poured another glass. "What time is it?"

"It's 10 p.m." She was already exhausted from her day as it was. "It'll be at least a two hour drive to get to the ghost, I've been up for twenty hours already, and I don't even know what that unearthly bitch did to my back. Unless you want to go solo, I might just die on you."

Balthazar stared at her for a moment, placing the bottle of whiskey on the counter with a resounding _thunk_, before finally pointing to her. "... I can fix that."

"You'll tangle me into a pretzel," Catherine glared back in stubborn resignation.

He rolled his eyes as well – a common trend between them – and pushed himself away from the counter to sit beside her again. Balthazar began talking as he would to a fledgling. "For the billionth time. I won't. Hurt you."

She just continued to glare. "If you won't turn me into a pretzel, then you'll definitely probe my brain."

"I won't probe your brain!" he groaned with exasperation, and then, "... without permission, of course."

Catherine just blinked up at him very tiredly. "What is that supposed to mean?"

He just gave a deep sigh in return. "Look, I thought that this trip was going to last a few days, at the most... It obviously hasn't." Despite the fact that he knew Cat was already pinching the bridge of her nose, he still continued. "If we're going to be working together on this – and trust me, I wish we weren't as much as you do – there needs to be some sort of teamwork happening here."

"I can't believe you're the one telling _me_ this," she mumbled to herself.

Balthazar persevered. "We need to catch whoever is summoning these ghost things and we need to do so quickly. What's the point of having an angel tag around if you're not going to at least enjoy it once in awhile?"

She almost laughed. "The first time I heard about you guys, it was a mass notice to kill on sight. Enjoying angels seems like a far jump."

He just glared at her. Of course, she glared back before he spoke again. "I just want to figure out what's going on and I'd rather not have the broken human slowing me down."

That did it, and he knew it as her eyes narrowed a margin more. "I hate you," she murmured lowly.

"I know, dear," he responded with a equally angry smirk.

Yet, he was still nearly shocked when she gave depreciating sigh. "Make it quick before I grow some sense," she grumbled, rubbing her forehead. "And no brain probing."

She was actually agreeing to this. Getting around her stubborn attitude felt like more of a victory than it should have been for him. Still, he couldn't act relieved, especially when she wasn't giving in completely. "Fine," he happily smiled, reaching his hand over to move the one on her forehead. "Second base is close enough."

Catherine glared again, jaw tightening a breath, before his hand met her skin. She expected something incredible. A big light show or an intense warmth to spread through her. Instead, it was just his warm hand – more gentle and familiar than expected – as all pain and fatigue vanished.

She blinked and, upon opening her eyes in that breath, felt renewed all over again. It seemed that Balthazar knew the effect that it had on her and was slow and gentle with removing his hand. At least, she thought he was, before he opened his mouth again.

"Let's not waste time. You only have so much of it," he announced as he got up, then added on as an afterthought, "I should have done something about your hair. It's too brown and plain. Maybe some highlights. Don't human women like pink?"

With a groan as nearly half of the fatigue seemed to come back to her, Catherine closed her laptop. "Let's just go."

"I think you would look great with purple," he continued on, sipping out of his almost forgotten glass on the counter.

* * *

They sat in her car on the side of the street in the middle of the night, grimacing through the passenger side glass at their destination. A hotel that had been abandoned during renovation.

"Cliché, isn't it?" Catherine sneered, looking at the very unimpressive location.

Balthazar was on the verge of being a very whiny brat as he turned to look at her. "I would ask if we could just come back during the day if I wasn't the one that dragged you out here in the first place." He looked back at the building, frowning. "Pride and all that."

"Just remember that this is all your fault," she sighed, pulling the car out of park and slinking into the hotel's parking lot. There were, thankfully, no police around for the time being. "We'll need to find a way in other than the front door."

"Of course we need to make things complicated," he grumbled before getting out of the car.

While he found a back entrance, hopefully one he didn't make, Catherine went to the trunk of the car and armed herself. As much of a pain as it was, fire worked well the last time, so she loaded the shotgun with salt shells and stuffed a few explosive ones in her pocket, along with a cigarette lighter and flashlights. After a moment's thought, she took the angel sword that she lifted off of the demons, too, and stuffed it away.

It took a moment or two to find him, but Balthazar was happy to get on with things once she did. With a touch of his hand that seemed just as gentle as she still too starkly remembered, the glass of a long window shattered to dust. She deftly handed him a flashlight as he climbed in first. It seemed like he was purposely trying to ruin that moment for her.

She climbed in right behind him to find everything swallowed in darkness before both of their light beams came on. Balthazar was back to frowning as he looked around. "See anything other than it just being creepy?"

Catherine huffed and eventually looked up. "Some ghosts haunt certain floors in buildings like this... Let's find the stairs."

"Oh, yes," he hissed while following her, "A stairwell is bound to be far less creepy."

After searching through the bottom floor and the second, coming up with nothing both times, the pair tentatively made their way up to the third story. Catherine's nerves were on high and she knew Balthazar was just as tense as she was, despite that he was very good at hiding it. The angel seldom grew quiet for so long.

He, going first, pressed his forearm against the door to slowly peer through. Cat immediately knew it was the right floor since the rest of the place was in pitch darkness. This floor, for whatever reason, still had its lights on.

She walked in after him, but stopped almost at the same time he did. Yes, it was cold and, yes, there was certainly a smell, but she was far more concerned with the bloody sigils covering every inch of the floors, walls, and ceiling in the hallway. This was not even close to the same as before.

Balthazar followed the patterns with his eyes until he was looking directly up. To Catherine, it was the one spot the blood hadn't touched. To him, it was the original work. "We aren't the first ones to find this," he quietly breathed, arming his sword quickly and dropping the light. "The angel made the initial markings. Something else did the rest."

"There's more?" she hissed, tucking away the flashlight to handle her already drawn gun with both hands. "I only know one thing to do sick crap like this."

"Demons," he agreed, hovering closer to his human companion for a moment, before slowly stepping further into the hall. He immediately came to a halt when the lights started flickering and the temperature dropped by several degrees.

Neither dared to speak for a long moment until many of the lights in the hallway suddenly began to blow and the floor started shaking. Balthazar drew back closer to Catherine again. "More sigils," he spoke, not bothering to keep quiet as it knew they were there. "The demons made it stronger."

The hallway seemed to breathe far away into the darkness. Walls seemed to stretch oblong and the air seemed to be sucked away from them, as if they were in the belly of the beast. Seemed to, because something on this scale couldn't be real without psychological manipulation, Catherine told herself. Even supercharged ghosts couldn't be capable of such a thing.

The shaking was reduced to a low rumble as the air stilled around them again and neither breathed. The time seemed to stretch while their hands tightened around their weapons. Surely they should run, one thought a moment before the other, but running would do no good. Things had to be settled.

Just as Balthazar was about to take the opportunity to just set the whole place ablaze, a frozen wind began to soar far off down the hallway, taking out what lights were left in its path in showers of sparks. It wasn't wind, Catherine knew and she cocked her gun. Before she could get any sort of aim, Bal had already moved in front of her, hand raised to the invisible force.

"Shut your eyes!"

She quickly did so and turned her head away, but the blinding light made it almost seem like her eyes weren't closed at all. The brightness didn't bother her as much as how quickly it faded away. Catherine looked up again just in time for the gust to knock them both against the wall so hard that the air was sapped from their lungs.

* * *

**This chapter took longer to write up than I would have liked, but it IS longer in length, so I guess that makes up for it. Plus, a good, old fashioned cliff hanger. Everyone loves cliff hangers. And those small little moments were fun to write. Character/relationship development takes so long for me and it doesn't help that both of these characters are super stubborn and can hardly stand each other... But it'll work out! Maybe!**

**I mean, if they live through this. You never know.**

**Hoping that the next chapter will be soon, guys. Take care and I hope you enjoyed it.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Thanks for coming back for more, guys. :) **

**As a reply to Stardust67's review, DON'T WORRY! This is going to be quite a long fic, I believe. There's going to be a whole lot of romance-y moments in here. Though, I have to admit, I do enjoy their bickering on some level. Lol**

* * *

He hadn't expected that, for whatever reason. The ghost from before had grabbed him with enough strength to push him away, so why hadn't he expected this being to render him useless, too? If he was at full power, this sort of thing wouldn't be a problem. But he couldn't exactly waste the entire building, could he? Maybe he should have taken her original advice and came alone.

Through the half-conscious daze, he tried to remind himself that she was useful. She had information, transportation, more detailed knowledge, and his back while fighting against something like this. Yet, how he wishes that he should have come alone and just left her in Sioux Falls. It wasn't really riding around in the car, being weighed down with a human partner, or even the snappy little arguments between them. He liked the arguments, really, and that was part of the problem.

In all honesty, he liked her. Which was fine and all, really. Castiel seemed to like Sam and Dean an awful lot before he went nuts. While probably not healthy, he didn't find too many problems with that besides the whole Apocalypse thing. He didn't care for going anywhere beyond just _liking_ her, though. He wasn't completely human, so while connections like that weren't easy to create, they did mean more as time went on. Liking was fine, but he didn't want to actually care. Last time he did that, he was literally back stabbed for it.

The world seemed to slow through his hazy vision as Balthazar pressed a hand against the floor to try and raise himself up again. The high pitched screech of the ghost seemed very low and very far away even as the shriek rose higher and higher around them. He reiterated over his earlier thought process. Perhaps she was more useful than not to have tagging along, because the only thing that he could actually pick out of the world again was her voice.

"Move!"

Reality snapped back into place and he ran left, noticing slightly too late that she had gone right. The following gust from their specter friend left a crater in the wall they had just been thrown against, so doubling back was out of the question, especially as he was sure it was following after him. Terrific. Separated from his little, mortal hero. He idly thought that this was probably going to be another one of those painful experiences as he quickly rounded another a corner through the twisting hallways.

Catherine was running, too, but took the next corner sharply to to lean against the wall and risk a look back. Of course, it was only darkness. And silence. Way too much silence. The hotel wasn't that large, not too mention vacant. She should at least hear Balthazar's feet somewhere, but the silence was quite deafening.

Which meant that the ghost must have followed after her.

She unsheathed the angel sword, armed with both it and the gun as she looked back again. The darkness felt just as enclosing as the silence, but she didn't dare risk the flashlight. It would just use her sight against her.

Catherine turned and attempted to progress further down the hall when she finally did hear a sound. It was a tapping – like scurrying feet. Rats? She watched for where she assumed the sound was coming from, thankful that her eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, but still failed to see anything. Yet, the sounds were getting closer. So much so, that she felt herself backing away.

A face – a body clearly appeared out of the darkness with a scream and lunged for her. On reflex, Catherine swept the blade at it inches away from her face, the ghost vanishing in a flash of light before her. Through the panic, she couldn't tell its features or even if it was male or female, but it didn't matter as another lunged for her and she shot it.

Balthazar's head snapped around, nearly on the other side of the building, from hearing the loud gunshot. He was thankful to her once again for breaking the silence, but had to wonder what she was shooting at if the thing was after _him_. "Catherine!"

The wind whistled next to his ear and he ducked just in time for long claw marks to run deep into the wall behind him rather than his face. He couldn't see it, but Balthazar extended his hand to where the ghost should be and found it. The ghost burned to ashes in a bright light. Yet, he still got to his feet and ran in the general direction of the gunshot. He was beginning to get the feeling that that wasn't the only ghost.

Catherine, meanwhile, was heading to where she had heard his voice, slashing through ghosts as they appeared to try and stop her. They were right behind her, right on her heels, and she knew as well as they did that ghosts didn't need to chase down anything. Well, conventional ghosts didn't. She let off a few more shots, at least trying to clear them away so that they didn't continue to grab her. It was a miracle they hadn't pulled her to the floor already and finished it. Her earlier thought of rats felt very accurate when considering the same amount of congestion.

She passed by another corner and the ghosts fell away from her. In confusion, she turned to look back as she ran, before running into something that darted out of the hallway adjacent to her path. More like someone. In an "_oomph_" and a tangled whirlwind, Catherine found that her back had been pressed against the floor with Balthazar lying on top of her. Honestly, he was better than a blood lusting ghost.

He looked shocked to say the least, before his eyes darted to the angel blades beside her head, each of them gripping one. "Well, that could have been dangerous," he commented, before hearing the skittering and looking over in that direction.

"Run." Catherine already started trying to wiggle out from underneath him. "Run. Run!"

Taking her word for it, Balthazar got to his feet and pulled Cat up by her arm. He shoved her in front of him and they began running again from the skittering noises. "Next left goes to the stairwell," he helpfully mentioned, risking a glance behind them to see a whole lot of nothing following.

His footing wasn't nearly as sure as before, causing him to guess that the building was doing that shaking trick again. The ghosts didn't want them leaving, especially as they turned down the path he indicated. It was then that they both started hearing something much, much louder than little skitterings against the floor. The walls began to cave in behind their feet, the floor and ceiling ripping away like paper, trying to trap the two of them. Despite the fact he _knew_ that the commotion had to be destroying the sigils in the hallway, it certainly wasn't slowing down the ghosts any.

Catherine made it to the door, but glanced back to Balthazar instead of barreling through it. After all, if the ghosts were this powerful, the stairs wouldn't be a good place to be. However, she was forced to pause as he turned back to the destruction behind them. "Bal!"

She attempted to reach out to him, but Balthazar raised his arm against the torrent of wind and wood splinters trying to catch up to them. There was a beat of a pause as the ghosts rushed toward them that Catherine filled by screaming out his name again. "Balthazar!" He took in a breath and set a fire against the remaining walls that rushed towards the sigils and tornado of spirits.

The entire story erupted in screams, but the ghosts weren't stopping. Just as before, destroying the sigils only weakened them. A bright light began to radiate from him when the floor started to cave beneath both of their feet. Not really thinking on her actions, Catherine dropped her weapons and moved for Balthazar.

The ghosts were too close and the fire was out of his control already, so he grabbed Catherine to pull her against him and purposely fell back as the story finally gave away around them.

It all happened so incredibly fast. Cat just felt the unending falling and closed her eyes as she held him like a lifeline. Again, the light penetrated her closed eyes and she knew they were at least going to survive.

They landed on the floor once again and the first thing she noticed was that Balthazar was out of breath, eyes closed like he was in pain. He was an angel. That was definitely not right. Catherine quickly leaned off of him. "Hey? Bal?"

He opened his eyes again, but looked past her worried face to something above them. She turned to find the ceiling in perfect order as if they hadn't just fall through it... and then she realized they were back on the first floor.

Balthazar cleared his throat and she looked back to him while he put a hand to his forehead. "I might have used a little too much juice that time."

She furrowed her brow in confusion. "You're an angel. You're supposed to have a ton of juice." Catherine got off of him as he moved to sit up, catching his breath.

"Yeah, well. The fall didn't just clip my wings." It took her a second to realize he wasn't talking about the fall they had just gone through. He was a bit reluctant to admit this part, but it kind of had to be said now. "I'm disconnected from Heaven. I'm not... exactly what I used to be."

He looked at her and she just stared back. Honestly, Balthazar wasn't sure which part was giving her so many comprehending problems until she finally spoke. "Did you know before you set that floor on fire?"

Ah. He opened his mouth and blinked back at her, assuming she was referring to that moment when nothing happened and they nearly died. "... I don't see how that has any relevance."

That seemed to make her a tad angry. "We could have died!"

"You were right next to the stairwell!" he argued. "It might not have been a very nice place, but you would have been fine."

"What about you?" she screamed back, not entirely liking where this was going.

He paused for a moment, also not liking where this was going. It wasn't her fault, honestly. He did it. Still, he managed a shrug. "I lived."

Catherine was speechless. Yes, it was a selfless act that could have saved her, but she still really really didn't like it at all and if she could just find the right words, she would start screaming at him properly.

Instead, he put a hand up to try and stop her. "Instead of getting angry about it, perhaps you should thank me."

"Thank you?" she spat out. He could have died right in front of her and he wanted a thank you?

Apparently satisfied with her response, he just nodded. "You're welcome."

Catherine's jaw clenched as she finally shut her mouth and shot him a glare. She was about to say something else, when she noticed something past him.

Considering they were being chased by a ton of ghosts not ten minutes before, Balthazar turned quickly to see what she was looking at. He actually calmed at the sight of flames licking across a few of the ceiling tiles. A bell began going off somewhere in the building as the sprinkler system cut on and he turned back to look at her. "I may have forgotten about the fire bit," he spoke over the alarms, "Again."

She blinked tiredly at the fire, remembering that she hadn't slept in at least a full twenty-four hours. "We should probably go," she said, raising up and spotting both angel swords, her shotgun, and one flashlight on the floor a few feet away from them.

Once he stood up, she had already gotten her two weapons and began walking out of the building. If that was the famous silent treatment, it was annoying. He just grabbed up his sword and her flashlight, pocketing both before following her out and realizing that she had only just stopped right outside of the building. Curious, he stopped beside her, hoping this wasn't going to be a lecture or something.

Catherine stood there for a moment feeling very wet, rushed, and tired. "Do you want to drive?" she finally spat out.

_Extremely_ curious, he raised an eyebrow and turned to face her. "I know you got roughed up by those things, but I didn't realize they switched you out with someone that has less security issues."

She shot him a look before giving the same one to the hotel. It didn't pass him that she was trying to not make eye contact. "I'm tired, soaking wet, a little rushed since the cops and whatever else is speeding over here right now. I mean, this is..." Ugh. She looked around him, knowing that he was smirking his little face off. "Consider this as me... trusting you."

"I knew you could be sweet if you tried, darling," he smirked some more while she rolled her eyes. Recalling that she did say people were hurrying their way at the moment, he took the chance to lean closer and... lightly touch two fingers to her temple. He almost kissed her on the forehead just to annoy her some more, but that would likely end up bothering him more often than not.

Her eyes fluttered closed again and she breathed in a light breath, while he took away what small bit of information he needed and no more. Never before had it been so tempting to skim just a little further across the surface, but he let go of the mental connection for both of their sakes after fixing her up a bit.

She opened her eyes again to find the smirk gone and replaced by an entirely different look. However, by the time she realized that her scrapes were gone and that they were both dry again, he was back to all smiles. "I believe you have the keys, dear."

* * *

**Definitely another action heavy chapter. I tend to worry a bit more about my action sequences than anything else, but I hope you guys liked it anyway. Next chapter will hopefully be coming about soon. I believe you guys are going to like it, cause we're finally going to discover the rogue angel.**

**Thanks for reading and don't forget to tell me what you think!**

**(oh those page breaks... Fixed)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Back again, folks! Here we go. A big reveal! And the start of the real plot of this puppy.**

**That's right. We're not even there yet.**

* * *

They had driven through the night in order to catch the angel causing the ghosts. True to her word, Catherine had let Balthazar drive, and she even fell asleep at some point after his annoying insistence on the matter. His abilities might have worked for her stamina, but it wouldn't do much with her mental state. He could hardly handle a sane Catherine; he didn't need a crazy one.

It was currently raining as Balthazar drove. As much as he didn't like traveling to get where one needed to go, he at least could grant that it gave one time to think. Then again, he reasoned, there wasn't much to think about, right? Tonight, they'll find their angel friend, beat the crap out of him until he tells them where the Winchesters are (because after all of this, he better know), then go to the those brothers, demand to see Crowley, get answers... On the other hand, there was a lot of work ahead of them, wasn't there? He sighed to himself. How much longer would this last?

He braved a quick glance over to his sleeping passenger and sighed again. It had already lasted too long.

The car passed the first city limits sign, so he figured it was time for her to wake up. How long were humans supposed to rest for, anyway? "Catherine."

After a quiet pause, he looked over to her again. She hadn't even shifted... Balthazar looked back to the road and smirked, before he quickly reached over and grabbed her arm. With a little jump and a yelp, she was awake and his hands were back on the steering wheel like nothing happened.

"Oh good. You're awake," he smirked. Catherine blinked around at their surroundings, trying to figure what jolted her awake so fast and having a feeling it was the angel. Balthazar just continued. "We've entered city limits. Thought you'd like to be awake for our host."

She wiped at her eyes and tried to get her bearings again, momentarily taken aback that Balthazar was driving until she remembered the previous day... or days. It had been awhile since she slept and that wasn't exactly a great nap. Still, she remembered his arguing that she take it anyway, so she wasn't going to complain. Instead, she looked around at the signs.

"Hopefully," she said in mid-yawn. "I mean, we still might be behind them."

Bal's eyebrow twitched. "I will not tolerate pessimism in this vehicle, young lady."

Right. Being too hopeful was a bad thing in this business, but she wasn't about to tell him that so bluntly. Instead, she actually smiled and gave a little chuckle. "Did you forget who's car this is, already?"

"It's your memories driving this thing," he motioned to her. "I'd like to think it's more of a joint ownership."

She rolled her eyes, but kept smiling. "I can't even remember the last time someone else has driven this car."

"What about that lad in those pictures back in your bedroom?" He didn't really know where the thought came from. He had only glanced at them while waiting for her. It hadn't even really occurred to him before that moment, yet he thought to bring it up anyway.

Then Catherine gave him a strange look that nearly wiped away that smile and his resolve hardened on the subject.

Balthazar shrugged. "You saw me looking at them. I didn't know it was a secret."

"No, no. It's not-" She paused, still trying to wake up when that bombshell was dropped on her. "Just came out of nowhere from you... But no, you're probably right. I imagine he was the last one. I hope you feel honored."

"Oh, I do," he smirked with a clench of his jaw. "Terribly so." Against his new nagging in the back of his mind, Balthazar dropped the subject.

* * *

He followed Catherine's directions until they arrived at what she assumed to be the most cliché place a haunting would occur and the only place she figured their angel friend would summon a ghost. Upon their arrival, he looked at their location in distaste and didn't move to get out of the car. "A sawmill," he groaned.

"An _abandoned_ sawmill," Cat corrected. "It's perfect. I don't think they would have passed it up."

He turned to look at her, but she was already moving to get out of the car. "Catherine." He quickly followed her out while she was already opening the trunk. "Wait a minute, what if this hunch is wrong?"

"Do you have a better idea? We can't really wait for them to make the first move," she replied while putting a few salt shells in her shotgun. "If we're wrong then no harm done. We'll just have to do things the old fashioned way again. Besides, if you had an angel radar, I think you should have told me by now."

At a loss, he just groaned again. "Well..." She wasn't going to like this and he knew it, but he decided to try it anyway. "Maybe I should go in and check it out first."

Catherine hardly paused in getting her things together, but she did shoot him a look. "And what will you do if the angel is in there? Handle it by yourself?"

"Yes." He still knew she wouldn't go for it.

After a moment of staring at him, she eventually tilted her head to the side. "Nah." While he groaned again like a child, she took up the angel blade and closed the trunk. "I saved your ass against a ghost, remember?"

"That was the first time," he argued, "I saved yours the second. And besides, you don't have any experience against hostile angels."

"Well, I know they like the throw people against their own vehicles," she argued back, moving around him. "So long as we leave the car outside, we should be fine, right?"

"Cute," he growled. He did do that, didn't he? Balthazar had forgotten all about it. Aggravated, he ran after her.

She continued on, "The little human doesn't need to be coddled." She was still not over his near sacrifice at the hotel.

"I'm not _coddling_," Bal grumbled, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder. "I don't want the _little human_ slowing me down."

She shrugged, effectively removing his hand in the process. "All right. Then, we'll split up."

"No!" he nearly barked. This was getting tiring and he never really had that great of an argument to begin with. From the look she shot him, he could tell Catherine felt more or less the same. He still endeavored to try, though. "That worked out _so well_ last time."

"Balthazar." She managed to quite him in one breath, so Catherine took the opportunity. "We're both here. We're both in this together, so we need to work together. You're the one that told me that."

"That's when it was against a ghost," he argued back again, albeit much quieter than his earlier tempo. "Angels are a lot worse than _ghosts_. Even that thing at that dilapidated hotel. Whatever is going on, I'm at the center of it. Not you. I should be the one to handle whatever this mess is."

"I'm here, because I need to be," she hissed at him. "I pissed off the Queen of Hell, in case you've forgotten. I don't have a choice." He grew silent again and she knew that she said the wrong thing. He had been doing that to her since they started out on their journey, so she tried her hardest to shrug it away while turning her back on him. "Let's just find that stupid angel."

Balthazar watched her walk away from him for a moment, before flicking out his own angel sword, setting his jaw, and following her again until he shoved pass her. "I'm still going in first."

* * *

And so, Balthazar went into the building first, true to his word. Catherine stayed right behind him, though, whether he approved of her being there or not. She was partly there to just be stubborn, but she also didn't want him getting hurt because he wanted to go in alone. She was human, not helpless and useless.

It didn't help that he was also being stubborn over the issue. He could at least admit to himself that, no, he did not want her getting hurt. The biggest reason for which is that it would be on his watch if she did so. He was an angel and he couldn't stop one human from getting hurt? That was quite the burn he would have to listen to for eternities hence. Of course, the other reason was that he didn't really have anyone in his inner circle anymore. That had been dwindled down to Castiel and, well... He was never one to talk to himself, so he did enjoy talking – or arguing – with Catherine quite a bit.

So when Balthazar opened another door to reveal a room actually devoted to cutting apart logs, he quickly began to backtrack. "If the bloody thing's in there, it can stay in there," he grumbled.

Catherine shined her flashlight across the room, glistening across all of the razor sharp blades. Her reaction was more of a grimace. "If it was in here, we'd know... Right?"

As she looked back to him, Balthazar took the opportunity to close the door back. "Don't you people have those ESPN detectors or something to find these things?"

"EMF," she corrected with a huff, "But we're not looking for a ghost."

He rolled his eyes and turned back the way they came. "Of course not-" Balthazar stopped when he noticed his path blocked by several ghosts, all standing in a row and looking at the pair. Upon registering that they had been noticed, they began screaming before Catherine could even shoot at them.

They both tried to run into the room behind them, but the ghosts threw in a different direction before they were able. They're backs hit the doors that fell open with their weight and now they were both on the ground of what seemed to be a loading bay or something. Catherine was more concerned with her current problem than to really take a look around, but once she sat up again, she realized that the ghosts were not entering the room and were instead staying close to the outside of the doors.

This was when, in a near panic, she thought to take a look at her surroundings. The first thing she noticed was that her gun was now gone, perhaps slung somewhere else by their attackers. Next, she noticed that her clothes had been scuffed up with something red and, upon further inspection, realized it was the same stuff that was drawn across the floors of their new room with a small, empty circle in the middle that she assumed were the angel's sigils. They were too late.

Balthazar had come to the same realization. Blood was everywhere. Not only were they behind the angels, but the demons as well. It didn't make him feel any better to think that the ghosts that were strong enough to throw and trap them in this room were not planning on entering themselves.

The thought vanished when Catherine, out of the corner of his eye, ran over to him with her own angel sword at the ready. He quickly turned to find a glowing eyed, nearly skeletal version of a ghost that was interrupted in attacking him by his, once again, savior. The ghost threw the hunter back before he could even thrust his sword to it. Wounded, but not done, the ghost vanished as Balthazar stood again.

Hearing a yelp from behind, he turned to find that the ghost was targeting Catherine now and had just disarmed her. "The sigils!" she screamed back to him before he could even think about going to help her. She seemed to think being a distraction was a _good _thing, but only made him curse to himself.

The ghost didn't seem as powerful as the previous one and she noted that they had probably at least interrupted the demons. However, she didn't have any weapons and failed to really calculate how fast the being was and was hit from the side before she could gather her senses.

Balthazar, who just wanted this over very quickly, turned back to the sigils on the floor and lit the outer ring as it burned through the markings in a quick inferno. The fire engulfed the room until a wave of his hand put it out, only leaving the marks of the blood behind.

Catherine, however, fell to the ground.

He turned towards her, realizing that the ghost had already gone in the blast of fire, but also noticed that Cat was making no moves to get back up again. The fire hadn't gotten her, he knew it hadn't, but he still ran over to her quickly to find a great deal of blood and her gasping for air.

"What-?" What happened didn't matter. Fixing her mattered, so he put a hand to her forehead and the other against her strange, deep wound.

Catherine took in a deep breath to speak, not bothering with conserving her energy at this point. "Ghost. It... I don't know... struck me." Breathing hurt, though. Talking, even more so. She wasn't entirely good at judging how bad it was in the moment, but from how much red she seen earlier and the pained look of worry on Balthazar's face when he arrived next to her was enough of an indicator. Well, if she had stayed at the car, she resolved with herself, then he would just be in this situation instead of her.

Balthazar didn't seem to have been listening to her explanation, as he looked between his hands. The one on her head did nothing, the other only managed to get more blood on it. He had healed her scrapes earlier. Could he not heal a fatal wound even a little bit? Just buy time until he could figure out a better plan? Was he _that_ disconnected from Heaven that he couldn't do this much? He resolved to try again, this time with a few rushed prayers to whoever was upstairs to lend him just a little bit of power. He had lost too many already and, while he only knew this human for a short time, he had grown fond of her and wasn't entirely ready to let her go just yet.

Before he could think up the first prayer, she was already muttering again and her words actually made him stop and listen this time. "It's okay," she quietly told him. It was kind saddening to watch him struggle to save her for someone with so much power. "Hunters..." She paused to get in another harsh breath, but things were already seeming very far off anyway. "We don't usually... live all that long anyway... It's okay..." Balthazar was frozen and could do nothing but look down at her, so she tried again. "You're an angel," she smiled, making herself cough in the process of that small twitch, but regained her breath again quickly enough. "You'll be fine... jackass..."

He still didn't make a move, ignoring a bright light moving behind the door. It was all he could do to look down upon her, while she tried to keep those few last breaths. She was mortal in a dangerous situation, yet this seemed like such a shock to him and even while thinking on how confusing of a thing that was, he figured that he should say something, anything, before she was gone. "That's not fair," was all he found himself saying as he realized that she probably thought he was only responding to her comment and not to the entire last few days at large. He also realized that it was less her that he was talking to and more of his Father...

The door opened, the light pouring into the room and across the markings on the floor, Balthazar's shadow even stretching to the far wall. Not at all feeling threatened and still far too shocked, it took him a moment to even glance to what was approaching them. Catherine watched it, the light being the only thing she was able to see with the rest of the world growing so dark. It stopped on her other side, Bal keeping a close eye on it, as it moved his hand away and touched her.

His attention left the light that began to quickly grow dimmer and was drawn to Catherine again as she slipped into unconsciousness and her wounds healed, blood vanishing and breathing finally evening out to a steady pace again. Baffled, he looked over to the visitor who was no longer glowing bright, but instead just smiling as he removed his hand from the woman. Balthazar blinked at him for a moment. "... Gabriel?"

"Now, _that_," Gabriel chuckled, pointing to Catherine, "could have been bad."

* * *

**I've changed the main list of characters to scratch out Abbadon and add in Gabe. He's going to be playing quite the role in this, as well as some other people. Abbadon, however, may only show up once or twice again. Don't worry. You'll love her appearances.**

**Also, sorry that this chap took me a little longer than I would have liked. The holidays were a little nuts for me. Hope you enjoyed it, guys! More soon, I hope!**


	11. Chapter 11

**Thanks to everyone for the spike in reviews/viewers again! Welcome to the ride.**

* * *

Balthazar carried the unconscious hunter over to a bed. He had taken the liberty of getting a room with her money, but Catherine's possible annoyance on that situation was not even an issue for him right now. He just gently laid her down and looked back up to Gabriel, who was leaning against the wall with a little bag of gummy worms. Bal glared. "If I knew you wouldn't turn me into dust, I'd punch you."

Finally, he felt safe enough to actually talk. Or, rather, he felt that Catherine was safe enough.

Gabriel just smiled back. "Even then, you still wouldn't. I saved your girlfriend, remember?"

He didn't bother to correct the remark or glance to her, before Balthazar straightened up and moved closer to his elder brother. "You summoned those ghosts."

"Maybe." Gabriel took a bite of his candy, allowing Balthazar to lead their conversation. It was better that way.

And lead he did, getting gradually more and more annoyed. "Were you actually that bored? Was that really the best thing you could do with your time? Really?"

"Yes," the archangel smugly replied, moving off of the wall and planting himself in a chair at the table. Once he was done licking his fingers and Balthazar hadn't ran on, he continued. "It was the best way of doing things without revealing myself. I'm supposed to be dead, you know."

"Revealing yourself," Balthazar scoffed. "So, what? You've been in hiding this entire bloody time?" Probably not and he knew it. However, this was a better way of getting questions answered from someone like Gabriel, who preferred to have as many cards up his sleeve as possible.

"Oh, no. Luci shish kabob'd my ass," Gabe shook his head and smirked again, "Just like Castiel shanked yours."

Already, his tactic had backfired in his face. Of course. Bal shifted. "What do you mean? How do you know that?"

"Just because I can't fly doesn't mean I'm blind. I can see you," he pointed to the younger angel, "The scar's still there." Balthazar brought a hand to his chest before looking back to Gabriel, who just smiled. "I've always liked those zombie movies. Especially that Thriller thing. You remember that?"

"We are not zombies," Bal sighed.

"Well, what else would you call us? Lazaruses? … Lazuri?"

"Okay, stop." the younger angel put a hand to his head and rubbed his eyes for a moment. "Let's just... go back. If you didn't want to be revealed, then why did you show yourself?"

He raised an eyebrow and crossed his legs. "Balthazar," he said in a mock tone, "Are you not thankful?"

Now this was something he really _didn't_ want to admit, so Balthazar just groaned in response to the direct question. "If you really wanted to hide, I don't think that one human's life would have swayed that decision on your part."

"Maybe. Maybe not." Gabriel shrugged one shoulder and pursed his lips together. "If she did die, I have a good feeling that you would have veered off your righteous path of hunting up those two knuckleheads and we can't have that."

Wait... "You know-... Of course you know about that."

"Did it ever occur to you," Gabriel leaned against the chair, "that the ghosts were actually leading you somewhere?"

Ah. Now things were getting a little bit clearer. Sort of. Balthazar sighed. "You didn't think to leave a note?"

"Incognito, remember?" He took a bite out of another piece of candy before continuing. "Though, I mean, the ghosts were supposed to be challenging, but not deadly. When I found out my stuff was getting tampered with, I started heading back the way I came. You guys showed up right after I smoked the demons, but you didn't really give me enough time to clean up after them."

Well, that did explain a few details, but not even close to the big picture, so Balthazar decided to just come out with it. "Why did it interest you so much that we find the Winchesters?"

At that, Gabriel tapped his nose and pointed back to the younger angel with a big grin. "Million dollar question, ain't it?"

"I wouldn't know," he just grumbled back, "I'm still trying to figure out what the hell is going on."

Gabe just shrugged and leaned back in his seat again. "It's not those bozos I want you to get to, though. It's Crowley. Just... trying to help you do exactly what you wanted to do really."

"I was going to ask _him_ what the hell is going on," Balthazar argued, getting more and more agitated.

Especially as Gabriel nodded. "Exactly."

"You don't know." Bal sighed and rubbed his forehead before leaning against the wall as his brother had done earlier. "That doesn't explain why you're so interested."

"_Please_," his brother huffed, "Do you really think Abbadon wants the grace of an angel to kill one ego-centric crossroads demon?"

"Unless something really major happened while I was gone, which is entirely possible," Bal groaned, running his hand along his face and actually feeling quite tired, "I'm going to have to say no."

Gabe just raised his free hand. "And I want to know why. That's all."

"If you want to know why, then it must be something bad."

The elder scoffed and raised from the chair again. "There's a billion things a Knight of Hell can do with an angel's grace, okay? I'm just doing damage control."

Balthazar gave a loose smile to that. "What do you _really _think she wants, Gabriel?"

"She probably just wants to jump your vessel's bones," he answered, beginning to chew on another gummy worm.

Right. He wasn't going to get any answers from this and he knew it. Likely, Gabriel probably just didn't know and didn't want to admit it. At least, he hoped that was the reason or this really was a bad deal. "After the fall, an angel's power is weaker," he sighed again, "It's going to be easy for Abbadon."

"Ehhhh." Gabriel shifted and tilted his head. "That's kinda why she honed in on you, bro. Not everyone got the short end of the stick."

… Balthazar leaned off of the wall and squared his shoulders at this accusation. "Excuse me?"

"Your wings got seared off," he said, motioning to the other, "That only takes away flight, not everything else. Why did you think I had to do such a light show to bring one person back to life?" The other only had enough time to look back to Catherine before Gabriel answered for him. "We're _dead_, Balthazar. Zombies. Or at least, we were. Heaven hasn't gotten the memo that we're back yet."

He looked back to the archangel, genuinely concerned about this turn of events. "_Heaven_ doesn't know that we're- Not the people up there, but _Heaven_ itself."

Gabriel just nodded. "It'll catch the hint as more of us pop up, but for now? You just got whatever goods you came in with and no more. Looks like you went and used most of that up already... Well, I say most. Takes a lot of juice to bring someone back to life."

"She wasn't dead!"

Catherine groaned and stirred in her sleep from the outburst, but didn't wake.

The movement had drawn both angels' attention, but Balthazar was the one to shift in place and force himself to calm. Gabriel only bit at his candy with a smirk, opting wisely to not say what was on his mind.

Bal let out a long breath before finally turning his attention to Gabriel again. "Where are Sam and Dean?"

"Lebanon, Kansas," he answered back, happy to get back to business for a change. "It's kinda hidden, but you'll be able to find it. I'll draw a path."

"Not with more ghosts, I hope," Balthazar muttered, but continued before there were any comebacks. "What do you want out of Crowley and how do I find you again?"

Gabriel just smirked wider. "You don't. Just ask ye ol' king whatever you were already gonna ask him and that'll be that. I'll know what he told you."

At that, Balthazar furrowed his brow. "How?" he growled.

"Don't worry," was the chuckled response, "I'll know by your retaliations."

He hated this. Gabriel had a lot of ideas of what Abbadon was planning and he wasn't giving up any of them. Not that Balthazar could really do anything about it. The only reason the archangel hadn't down something about his younger brother's attitude was because he was being a willing pawn. Thankfully, Gabriel had been one of the better ones before he left Heaven, so there weren't too many qualms about helping him out, but he would like to know what he was aiding in exactly.

Instead of going down another path of conversation that would lead to dead ends, Balthazar glanced back to the sleeping Catherine again. "When will she wake up?"

"Whenever she starts feeling better," Gabriel answered, balling up his now empty plastic bag and tossing it into a garbage bin behind his Bal. "I'm sure it'll be any day now," he smiled, pushing himself from the wall and going to the door.

Balthazar, nearly alarmed, watched after him. "Where are- You're leaving _now_?"

"I finished my candy," Gabe shrugged back, opening the door. "I'll be in touch. Maybe. Hopefully not... Been a hoot, bro." Gabriel left with a wave. At least he had the foresight to quietly close the door behind him.

* * *

Catherine stirred again, but her eyes opened this time due to the sound of rain. What she found was a small motel room with Balthazar leaning against the window frame and watching the weather outside. Aside from his solemn look, it appeared as normal as the last few days have been, until her memories of the last time she was awake came back to her. After blinking for a moment, she began to sit up.

Hearing her movements, Balthazar was next to her in a second. "How do you feel?"

A little shocked that he had already moved, she looked up to him before swinging her feet to the floor. "I feel..." That was actually a hard question to answer in the moment. "Alive... What happened?"

He stood there for a second to make sure she was steady and to process her question, before giving one of his annoyed smiles. "My brother happened."

"The angel?" At this, she became wide awake and full of questions. The angel they had been hunting saved her?

"Gabriel," Balthazar growled out, sitting down on the bed across from hers and pointing to the door. "He just left a few hours ago."

Catherine quickly turned to the door before looking back at him again. "The... archangel?"

"He had been leading us to the Winchesters," he said, propping his chin up with his arm. "And he took care of the demons, of course. He wants us to speak to Crowley and figure out what's happening."

Her eyes narrowed to him, trying to put all of that together. "He was-... He couldn't just leave a damn note?"

Balthazar barked a hollow laugh before twisting around and falling back onto the bed. "Said he wanted to stay incognito, but at least he'll stop with the bloody ghosts... You know, I think I could actually sleep right now."

She shook her head in confusion. "So... he saved me, told you to find Crowley, and... left?" On that last bit, she looked back to the door again.

He just threw his arms into the air. "Not like there was anything I could do about it. Archangels are at the top of the food chain, after all."

"But why would he do all of this?" Catherine turned to look back at him again. "An archangel is interested in what Hell's planning?"

"Now you see why my best plan is to sleep through it," he muttered, not entirely liking whatever they had found themselves in the middle of. Abbadon was right. It was much bigger than he initially thought.

After a second, she finally asked the question he was dreading. "He told you where they are?"

Balthazar let out a long groan and rubbed at his face again. "Lebanon, Kansas. He said he'd mark the way for us."

"Lebanon..." She looked to the bedside clock and stood. "We can be there by tomorrow."

Balthazar only watched her stand, not making any movements himself. He kept his eyes on her even as Catherine began to walk away before she stopped and slowly turned back to him. They looked between each other for a long moment until she finally broke the silence. "Are you okay?"

Still, he watched her for another minute before finally reacting to the question and looking back to the ceiling again with a sigh. "Oh, I'm brilliant."

"Bal."

He paused in responding again. Really, he felt like he was only stalling and it wasn't from seeing those two boys again. He couldn't save her and things were only going to get worse. At least, that was the reason he gave himself as to why that was eating at him, rather than it had to be Gabriel, the one who didn't even stick around or care for her at all, that had saved Catherine instead of him. She needed him and he fell through and an apology was in order, but he couldn't dig it out. Perhaps it was her acceptance that he couldn't save her that was holding the words back, because that was also eating away at him.

Thoughts like that were... uncomfortable, so Balthazar just took a deep breath and rolled out of bed before she could ask him what was the problem again. "Let's just go."

* * *

**Winchesters and (hopefully) Crowley will be in the next chapter! It still may be the chapter after next that we fully figure out what's going on from Crowley, but we're really really close to it now! Also, I can't really say right now how closely this is going to follow season 9's timeline. It's obviously going to skew off into an AU, of course, but I'm still trying to decide on Gadreel's placement in this fic, if he's going to have one at all.**

**Anyway! I hope you guys liked this chapter and I hope to have the next one up as soon as I can! I'm so excited for what's to come, guys.**

**HAPPY NEW YEAR!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Welcome, new followers! I hope everyone had some happy holidays.**

**As a note, I've changed a few minor things, such as Kevin still being alive and Castiel staying with the Winchesters. Minor because this is still taking place early on in the season as far as timelines go. Gad- er um Ezekiel's still here, though.**

* * *

"Sam?" Dean had just finished tugging his jacket on when he walked into the main foyer of the Men of Letters base, looking around for his brother. After a glance to his watch, the elder hunter reasoned that he had to be outside for a jog. Not still asleep or, worse, dead in a corner somewhere. The trials were still haunting the both of them.

Instead of waiting for him to come back in on his own time, Dean started taking the stairs two at a time to head outside and look for him, just in case. "Sammy?" He was relieved, once opening the main door, to find his brother outside. "Dude, where've you been? I was looking all over for-"

"Something's been here," Sam said in a low tone, looking off to the road.

Being cut off from his train of thought, Dean looked to the road and back to Sam. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Something's been here," he said again, looking to Dean, "and something's coming."

Realization washed over him as he looked over his brother again. "Zeke. What is it? What's coming?"

"Angels," Ezekiel said, looking away again, "One of them has been here and left beacons for others to come, but they're fading fast. They'll be here soon. This is because of Castiel. He should not have stayed, Dean."

"Whoa, wha- Slow down. Why didn't you sense-" Dean waved his arms in the air, trying to figure out what to do first. "We can't just run and let them have the place."

"We don't have time for that, anyway."

"All right, all right, fine. We'll just- Give me my brother back and we'll figure out what to do."

Ezekiel tightened his jaw, not entirely sure how that plan was going to work out, but handed over control of his body back to his unknowing host. When Sam blinked back into the world, he nearly jumped to see his brother suddenly next to him. "Dean?"

"Don't freak out," were the first words his older brother said. These words were never followed by anything good and Sam was already frowning heavily while Dean continued. "Cas saw something and he thinks it's some angel graffiti marking up the place. He says there might be some on their way."

"I- What?"

"Don't worry, we'll- Just don't worry. Come on."

* * *

Even Catherine had to admit, Balthazar was much more useful as a walking, talking compass. It probably would have been easier if he had driven, but then she reasoned that he wouldn't be near as talkative. Since she had woken up, something had been on his mind that he just couldn't shake and, despite her questions on the subject, he didn't seem to want to talk about it. It likely had to do with her near death experience, but shouldn't she be the one shaken up about that?

At least they had a distraction now as she pulled the car into the drive that he indicated, until he waved at her to stop.

"What is it?" Cat asked after pulling to the side, not seeing anything threatening in these trees.

Balthazar, on the other hand, could certainly see a whole lot more. "The signs are faded more here. We're close... We should walk."

"What?" There didn't seem to be a building for another mile, but even as she spoke, he was already out of the car and closing the door. With a quick roll of her eyes, she killed the ignition and got out, too; Balthazar already walking ahead of her to force her to catch up. "Why are we walking?"

"If I can see these signs, other angels can, too," he answered, not bothering to slow down or look to her, "If they have their little boyfriend with them, they may be ready for trouble."

Thankfully, he had mentioned Castiel when he filled her in on the Winchesters in general, but she wasn't sure which parts were true and which he was just exaggerating. "Well, we aren't a threat, so why should we act like we are?"

"They'll probably consider us a threat either way," he replied, roving his head around the stretch his neck. "We just need to be ready for anything until we can explain ourselves."

"Wait a minute..." Catherine grabbed his arm, which thankfully made him stop and finally look to her. "I thought you said you knew them and all this other stuff. Why do you think they'll attack you on sight?"

… He shifted in place. "Well, me and a friend of theirs aren't on the best of standings." She started rubbing her eyes again, but he continued. "Plus, I'm supposed to be dead. What would you do if you saw a dead angel walking around?"

She sighed "Why didn't you tell me this on the road?"

Balthazar gave a small shrug. "You would have just stressed about it."

Catherine allowed her arm to fall as she shot him a look, when something caught her eye behind him. Bricks, it seemed like, to some building that she couldn't see the entirety of. That was all that could be seen through the foliage in the wood.

He turned to see what she was looking at and began moving off of the road after glancing back to her again. "Good eye."

"Is that it?" she asked, following after him again. She would certainly argue that it was well hidden and off the beaten path, but the road had to stretch around to it eventually, right? Not that she was complaining about the shortcut either.

"Seems that way," he sighed. "Only place in miles, I think." The building itself didn't seem to be marked by the archangel, but Balthazar could think of several reasons why that wouldn't have worked out. Instead, as they both grew closer, the building was revealed to be much larger up close. Even though it looked abandoned for years, he figured they were in the right place and nodded to his confirmation to his companion.

Catherine moved to walk ahead of him and towards the large set of double doors at the entrance. "No one looks to be home," she said, not bothering to even touch the doors yet. "Should we knock?"

In answer, he moved an arm around her to knock loudly on the door, but both of them grew confused faces at the sound they received, which wasn't as hollow and deep as it should have been. Cat tried the handles, but groaned. "The doors are fake. We are in the right place."

"Fake doors?" Balthazar stepped back to look up at the rest of the building. Seems the Winchesters had gotten some better accommodations, at least. "How much are you willing to bet that their base is beneath this building?"

Catherine sighed and stepped back, too. "Let's split up and find the entrance."

She could have sworn she had just struck him by the sound he made in response. "What is up with you and splitting up everywhere we go? Every single time you end up in some sort of strange fatal predicament."

"We had split up once," she told him slowly, "and it was on accident."

"You were across the room last time. I'm counting that." Mostly because it hurt more to think she was nearly killed while he was in the same room, but he wasn't even about to voice that, especially with her glaring at him like she was.

"Well, we could always stick together and waste more time," she shot back, "If they're here, they're not outside or they would have heard us arguing already."

He hated her logic and groaned about it. "Fine, but we meet on the other side. If you find something... I don't know. Scream bloody murder or whatever."

"Yes, dear." Despite his annoyance about splitting up, Balthazar was already moving away by the time she started walking. While arguing with him was a normal occurrence, it was also more irritating than usual at the same time since she knew something was actually deeply bugging him.

Catherine shook it off by the time she rounded the corner, opting instead to just find these Winchester people as quickly as possible to move things along. Whatever had been between her and the angel had been growing and his new tense nature wasn't helping anything about it.

Leaves crunched beneath her feet as she walked along the side of the building, but upon hearing the sound echo behind her, Catherine stopped walking and listened closely. Could it be one of them? Something else? It wasn't Balthazar and that gave her enough reason to be alert. Her hand slowly snaked around to her back, yet her finger barely traced against the angel blade before the footsteps rushed toward her and she barely dodged the opponent's same blade.

* * *

Balthazar stopped his angry pacing around the building, as well, though it wasn't from hearing anything out of the ordinary. He sensed something near... and if he sensed it in his current state...

He turned in time to parry another blade that nearly drove into his back, but a hand quickly wrapped around his throat and pinned him against a tree. Of course, he could have very easily done something about that, but Catherine was right. They weren't a threat so they really shouldn't act like it. Still, this was the warm welcome he had expected.

Sam looked at the angel up and down, keeping the blade to his neck. "... Who are you?"

Bal rolled his eyes. "Beyoncé. Who the hell do I look like, boy? Mind shoving off?"

"Balthazar...?" Sam looked him up and down again, as if this was the first time he had seen someone be resurrected. "No, he died. Who are you? Who do you work for?"

"Oh, gracious," he muttered under his breath. "This isn't the first time you've seen an angel rise from the dead. You can't actually be serious right now."

Finally, Sam seemed to reason this occurrence with himself and finally met the angel in the eye. "Balthazar..." he said again, but pressed the blade closer to his throat. "What are you doing here?"

He knew what he was supposed to say. They weren't a threat, so they shouldn't act like it. Yet, his jaw tightened a margin more. "Why?" he asked in a low voice, "Is Cassie home, too?"

Sam only had time to tighten his grip around the sword, when a short scream broke out behind the building, gaining both of their attention. Balthazar was the first to speak. "Move!"

The younger Winchester didn't seem like he was going to have any of that, but only readjusted himself. "Who's with you?"

"I said, imove!/i" Balthazar had to only push Sam against his chest to fling him to the ground, and he didn't wait around to see what the hunter would do when he got up again. If only his stupid wings worked like they used to.

However, once he reached the other side of the building, Bal found an image he was more than happy to receive. Catherine was still standing with Dean Winchester beneath her boot and laying on his stomach. She was also quite angry, which he was thrilled about, to be quite honest.

"Yeah, okay," Dean mumbled into the ground. "I'm willing to believe you're not an angel, but I'm in a bad position to really give the benefit of the-..." At that, he manged to glance up to the actual angel standing before them and became speechless as his brother rounded the corner.

Sam held a sword against Balthazar before he noticed Catherine, who was already pulling out her gun until the angel raised his hands and stepped between them. "Let's all just calm down, yeah? As much as it pains me to say it, we didn't come here to start a fight. Finish one, maybe, but... well, you know."

Sam glanced between Balthazar and Catherine, before lowering his weapon by a margin. Dean, on the other hand, was still on the ground. "You're alive?"

"You tell me," the angel answered while his companion slowly removed herself from her opponent. She walked closer to Balthazar, keeping a close eye on the brothers.

Dean rose to his feet and nodded over to Sam while brushing himself off. "So..." There were only a million questions running through his head, so he just latched on to the most immediate one in the moment, while Sam slowly moved over to his brother. "Who's the chick?"

She growled out, "Catherine," before looking over to Balthazar. "These cannot be the idiots we were looking for."

"Unfortunately, yes," he groaned. "Also, by the way, since we're on the subject, I'm going to say I told you so. Splitting up never works."

"_What?_" In all honesty, she should have expected that to come up again, but her day was long enough already. "In case you didn't notice, I had it under control."

"You screamed like a banshee."

"I yelped in surprise," she argued back, "Besides, wasn't I supposed to scream if I found something?"

"I didn't think you would take that literally!"

Dean cleared his throat loudly. "'Scuse me. Hey." He smiled between them awkwardly as they both stopped arguing to glare back at him. "Um... What the hell's going on?"

Catherine just sighed, the anger from arguing already slipping away. "That's sort of what we came here to find out, I guess." Still annoyed, she looked over to Balthazar to try figuring out where to start, when he suddenly grabbed her chin and twisted her head back to face the Winchesters. "Can I help you?" she asked in confusion.

The angel tilted his head to the side as he observed a fresh bruise on her jaw. "Did he strike you?"

"No," she said with a sigh, "The building jumped me."

After a beat of silence, Balthazar turned to look at Dean, who swiftly stepped behind his much taller brother. "Hey, no. I thought she was an angel. I don't know if you've heard or not, but they're sort of out for our blood, okay. I was in the right."

It took another moment, in which Catherine said nothing in the hopes that something might actually happen for once, but Balthazar eventually released her after healing the bruise away. She rubbed at the spot, as the angel smiled. "How about we just have a chat, hm?

* * *

**I was going to add more to this chapter, but it already ran pretty long, not to mention that it's been a little while since the last update. It seems like I write all the time, but I always end up being about 4 or 5 days in between chapters.**

**If you guys do want longer chapters, let me know, but keep in mind that they'll take longer to produce. Anyway, I'm really hoping we'll get to see Crowley in the next chapter. I'm gonna start on it asap.**

**Also, out of curiosity and want of feedback, what have been your favorite scenes so far? Fave types of scenes? Things you'd like to see more of or something you'd like to see in general? Alternatively, anything you want less of?**

**Anywho, thanks for reading!**


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